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="Frayed Knot":e7qdd2lt]I remember Hunt didn't like Tom Seaver a whole lot; maybe that's a reason for his persona non grata status at Shea.[/quote:e7qdd2lt]
Are you sure you got the right Ron? I thought it was Swoboda and Seaver who had their differences (although I also thought that was in the past).
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Frayed Knot
Mar 15 2008 11:11 AM
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Hunt & Seaver never crossed paths as Mets so there was never any clubhouse tussles -- not sure about Seaver & Rocky although there was at least one with Swoboda & Cardwell that surfaced with the recent news of Cardwell's death.
But I do remember hearing an interview with Hunt at one point long after his career was over and the questioning turned (as they often did with him) to HBPs. I forget the details but it was Seaver the opponent who pissed Hunt off for reasons involving some aspect of perceived intentional or malicious HBPs and Hunt wasn't shy about saying so.
That said, it's probably not the reason why Hunt's been scarce around Flushing, Queens. I suspect that the Double-Pon ownership group's anxiousness to bury that early and inept Met past and keep a whole lot of distance between them and it is more likely the reason.
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Valadius
Mar 17 2008 12:03 PM
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The Marlins will likely retire Conine's number.
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SteveJRogers
Mar 31 2008 06:08 PM
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Like Augie as a Twin, Mo Vaughn is to be inducted into his prominent team's Hall of Fame, this November [url=http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080225&content_id=2389116&vkey=news_bos&fext=.jsp&c_id=bos:1ak60g7d]he will be inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame.[/url:1ak60g7d]
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AG/DC
Apr 07 2008 11:18 AM
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Do you wonder about Eddie B.?
<blockquote><a href="http://www.examiner.com/a-1324643~3_Minute_Interview__Ed_Bressoud.html" target="blank"><img src="http://www.examiner.com/img/menu/examinercom_logo.gif"></a>
3-Minute Interview: Ed Bressoud
Ed Bressoud Apr 7, 2008 6:00 AM (7 hrs ago) by Steve Drumwright, The Examiner
<img src="http://www.examiner.com/images/newsroom/small/small_27643DCC-3048-7D2A-C24EBF7206A90977.jpg" align="left" border="1" bordercolor="black">SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - In just his third major-league season, the California native ventured with the rest of the Giants from New York to San Francisco in 1958. Still a backup infielder, he played in 66 games that inaugural season on the West Coast. Bressoud also coached baseball at De Anza Community College in Cupertino for 24 seasons and has been enjoying retirement for 17 years. He will be one of the several original San Francisco Giants honored before today’s 1:35 p.m. home opener at AT&T Park as part of the 50th anniversary celebration.
What are your best memories of Seals Stadium? Obviously the first ballgame when we beat the Dodgers 8-0. We played some ballgames in 1959 with the Milwaukee ballclub with [Lew] Burdette and [Warren] Spahn pitching against us. It was a very, very tough series and I think we won two out of three at that point. The ballpark was so different, though. It was a small, intimate park that was great to play in. It was wonderful to play in.
Do you think that intimacy is lost at ballparks these days? Absolutely. ... At the same time, you see the new ballpark here with the fans closer and I think that’s great. And I played in Boston for four years and I could catch a popup down the third-base line and I would be from you to me [a foot or two] from the fans. That was great.
What made Seals Stadium great? The fans were right there next to you and I think that’s important. Anytime you can have that kind of a mutual feeling between the fan and the player and the fan feels like he’s part of the game. It’s like when I played for the New York Mets. My wife said she felt like she was a participant in the game, not a spectator, and I think that’s the kind of feeling you’d like to have, that’s the way you build loyalty and a fan base.
What do you think of AT&T Park? Unbelievable. I went over to the office and I said I’d like to go to the ballpark when no one is there, when the ballclub was out of town. I did. I went through the clubhouse, the clubhouse is unbelievable. There are safes in everyone’s locker. We used to have $10 in our pocket, not enough for anyone to steal.</blockquote>
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Benjamin Grimm
Apr 07 2008 11:21 AM
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="AG/DC":29l5uduh]Do you wonder about Eddie B.?[/quote:29l5uduh]
Boy, you have a good memory!
Of course, I think you were the one who was defeated by that song, so perhaps you'd have more incentive to remember it.
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Rockin' Doc
Apr 08 2008 04:51 PM
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Sharpie pasted me in the semis and the lopsisded tally did not fully represent how superior his parody was to mine.
Still, I relived some fond memories reading through that old thread again.
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AG/DC
Apr 11 2008 10:38 PM
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I watched me some <i>Wyatt Earp</i> this evening. A million hours later, during the closing credits, I spotted the name <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0329659/" target="blank">Greg Goossen</a>.
He seems to be in a bunch of Gene Hackman films. Apparently, he gets the job of Hackman's stand-in and usually gets a side role as well.
Gene Hackman's stand-in has got to be one secure job.
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SteveJRogers
Apr 16 2008 04:13 PM
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Expos may be gone, but their retired numbers (specifically Staub10 and Carter8 live on in the Bell Centre in Montreal)
Also an inneresting photo of The Kid in a Habs jersey along with The Hawk and Youppi
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AG/DC
Apr 23 2008 08:34 AM
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Niner going the distance:
<blockquote><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/sports/othersports/23conine.html?em&ex=1209096000&en=717ec11b89c047b8&ei=5087%0A" target="blank"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo379x64.gif"></a>
Starting His Retirement With a Splash
By PETE WILLIAMS
Published: April 23, 2008
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Jeff Conine could have filled the first months of his post-baseball career with golf, fishing and travel — the usual pursuits that a 41-year-old with financial security might enjoy.
<table width="190" align="left" bgcolor="white" border="1" bordercolor="black" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td widht="190"><img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/23/sports/conine190.jpg"><br><font size="1">Jeff Conine, who played in the majors for 17 years, is training for his triathlon debut Sunday and will be in the Ironman world championship. <br>Marc Serota for The New York Times</font></td></tr></table>Instead, Conine, a 17-year veteran of six big-league teams, has spent long hours swimming, cycling and running in preparation for an ambitious triathlon schedule that will culminate in the Ironman world championship in Kona, Hawaii, in October. Several former teammates, accustomed to the less rigorous conditioning of baseball, have questioned his sanity.
“Guys in my position are supposed to sit back and relax, not do something ridiculous like this,” said Conine, who lives in South Florida and will make his triathlon debut here Sunday at the St. Anthony’s Triathlon.
The race attracts more than 4,000 competitors and is considered the kickoff to the sport’s national calendar. As an Olympic-distance event (0.93-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike ride, and 6.2-mile run), it is a small fraction of the grueling Ironman distance race, but longer than entry-level sprint triathlons.
Conine spent the final six weeks of last season with the Mets and is best known for his role as a first baseman and outfielder for the Florida Marlins teams that won the World Series in 1997 and 2003. A longtime follower of the Ironman world championship, he was inspired to take up the sport by David Samson, the Marlins’ president, who finished the event in 2006.
Conine, who stands 6 feet 1 inch, finished last season at 220 pounds, heavy by triathlon standards, and until recently had limited swimming experience. But he was regarded as one of baseball’s better athletes, having played professional racquetball as a minor leaguer.
He certainly looks the part, having been told for years that he resembles Lance Armstrong, a likeness that seems more pronounced as Conine loses weight while training.
Though baseball is an anaerobic sport with short bursts of activity, unlike the long aerobic nature of triathlon, Conine believes the experience of playing a mentally taxing sport over a 162-game season will ease his transition.
“It’s all about being mentally tough,” he said. “With long-distance triathlon, it’s all about knowing when to push your body and when to rest and persevering through these boring six-hour rides and three-hour runs.”
After the St. Anthony’s Triathlon, Conine plans to complete half-Ironman distance events (1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike, 13.1-mile run) in Orlando next month and in New Hampshire in August, working his way toward the Ironman world championship.
Most triathletes must either qualify or win a lottery spot for entry into that event. World Triathlon Corp., Ironman’s Florida-based parent company, granted Conine one of several special invitations given to athletes with compelling stories, according to the W.T.C.
The Ironman made its debut in 1978, combining three popular Hawaii races: the Waikiki Roughwater Swim (2.4 miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (112 miles) and the Honolulu Marathon (26.2 miles). W.T.C. stages 22 Ironman-distance races worldwide, though the year-end Hawaii event is considered the most prestigious.
“It’s the most grueling test in sports, and for some odd reason that really appeals to me,” Conine said. “I figured the first year of retirement is the time I’ll figure out what to do with the rest of my life, so why not take on the biggie now?”
Though Conine’s baseball career did not officially end until last month, when he signed a one-day contract to retire as a member of the Marlins, he had no plans to return this year and began triathlon training in October. He left baseball with no lingering ailments, but broke a collarbone the day after Christmas after falling off of his bike. Surgery followed a week later, and it was not until March that he was fully recovered.
A typical training week for Conine this month has included nine workouts, including back-to-back “bricks” of two of the three triathlon disciplines. Two days consist of swimming 2,000 meters, followed by running for about an hour. At least once a week, he will bike for 2 hours 40 minutes, followed by a 30-minute run.
Conine rides a Cervelo P3C, a carbon-frame triathlon bicycle that retails for $4,500, mostly through Weston, the upscale community west of Fort Lauderdale where he lives. He swims at a pool and at a nearby lake, thus far without a wet suit, though he expects to wear one Sunday, when temperatures in Tampa Bay are expected to be only in the low 70s. His 12-year-old daughter, Sierra, will compete in a shorter, children’s division of the St. Anthony’s Triathlon on Saturday.
Conine figures he would go unnoticed during the event even if he was not wearing some combination of wet suit, swim goggles and cap, bike helmet and sunglasses. He certainly will not cause the stir Anna Kournikova did two weeks ago by running a relay leg of the Nautica Triathlon in Miami.
Conine says he has no plans to pursue the pro triathlon circuit, though he continues to wear the footwear and sunglasses of companies he endorsed as a baseball player. He will have plenty of reminders of his former career Sunday when the bike course takes him past Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays. The transition area is adjacent to a hotel where he stayed as a player.
“I keep telling myself I’m not looking to set the world on fire; I just want to finish,” Conine said. “But I’m sure once it starts, the competitive juices will be flowing.”</blockquote>
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Benjamin Grimm
Apr 23 2008 08:37 AM
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I just YESTERDAY learned of the existence of this competition while reading the Wikipedia entry on Kona, Hawaii.
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AG/DC
Apr 28 2008 03:05 PM
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Catch up with Lou Gorman:
<blockquote>Lou Gormman: High and Inside
by John Budris
HOFMAG.com Exclusive
The first time James "Lou" Gorman flirted with a Red Sox World Series championship, he nestled between his two female significant others on a raw night at Shea Stadium.
To his left shivered a frail Jean Yawkey, owner of the 1986 Boston Red Sox, for which he was then general manager. With the Sox a single strike away from winning the Series, Mrs. Yawkey shared the front office worry that the team had not ordered sufficient champagne.
To Gorman's right sat his wife, Mary Lou, gripping his hand with a white-knuckle clutch in those minutes before all thoughts of celebratory toasts vanished between Bill Buckner's legs. "To tell you the truth, I never did care for champagne that much, and liked it less after that night," said Gorman, now 78 and still in the Red Sox organization as an executive consultant.
Gorman joined the Red Sox in 1984 as vice president of baseball operations and general manager, a position he held through the 1993 season. Since that time he has been a consultant for public affairs with an emphasis on community projects, plus coordinator of the Red Sox Hall of Fame, which began in 1994.
<table align="left" cellpdding="4" cellspacing="0" border="1" bordercolor="black"><tr><td><img src="http://www.hofmag.com/images/stories/04282008/budris/1209376049_320p.jpg">
<font size="1">Lou Gorman at Fenway Park</td></tr></table>As GM, Gorman led the Red Sox to three postseason appearances, including the 1986 AL pennant, Eastern Division titles in 1988 and 1990 and six winning seasons in 10 years. But his bond with the Red Sox began when he was a kid from South Providence, Rhode Island. "My father brought me to Fenway for the first time when I was about 10, and after the game I remember waiting outside and seeing the players come out: Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr and Ted Williams," said Gorman.
Gorman himself had but a single afternoon in uniform in that ballyard from whose box seats he's since watched thousands of games. As a hot high school prospect from Providence, he suited up for a New England High School All-Star team at Fenway against the city of Boston's best.
"The game was sponsored by the Hearst Newspapers. Two players would go on to the Polo Grounds for a major league tryout. I played first, and so did the great Harry Agganis. He went to New York and I was an alternate," Gorman recalled.
"But after the game, Ted Williams took me aside and told me to go get my bat. He picked it up and said he liked my swing, but said the bat was just too heavy for me. I was walking on air. Imagine, Ted Williams liked my swing."
Gorman spent a brief time playing in the Phillies farm system, but sweet swing or not, he couldn't put up major league offensive numbers and was cut. His minor league comeback ended one summer in New Hampshire when a kid named Don Drysdale confirmed what Gorman already knew.
"I couldn't hit a curveball to save my life. That's 50-some-odd years ago, and you can still feel it in the gut," Gorman said of being released. "And so when it's your time as a GM to tell a Jim Rice or a Dwight Evans it's time to hang up the spikes, you have an idea of what's inside of them, too."
Gorman's on-going 44-year career in professional baseball, including his time as Red Sox GM and front office posts building the New York Mets, Seattle Mariners and Kansas City Royals, dovetailed with 34 years as an officer in the Naval Reserve. He had two full tours in Korea and retired as a captain. He credits his military service as the underpinning of his approach to baseball.
"You try to remember that it's not about you, it's about the well-being of your unit, and in baseball, the success of the game itself," said Gorman.
When the Red Sox let him go as general manager in 1993, Gorman stayed on and assembled the short list of replacements, including his successor, Dan Duquette. Old-school Gorman remains with the Red Sox. New-school Duquette, fired by the Red Sox in 2002, runs a baseball camp in the Berkshires. Gorman became the Red Sox ambassador, Duquette their orphan.
With an undergraduate degree in literature, he began working on a master's at Georgetown when the Korean War interrupted his early literary plans. Those ambitions rekindled three years ago with his first book, "One Pitch From Glory" and a second, the just-released "High and Inside: My Life in the Front Offices of Baseball."
In a clean raconteur's way, unglamored by a ghost writer, Gorman took a couple thousand hand-written pages and wove together in "High and Inside" four decades of baseball with stories of contract negotiations, trades, media spats and front office politics with a inevitable stain of steroids.
Much like the man, "High and Inside" is forthright and honest. What comes through most is Gorman's devotion to the game and his unique 44-year place as the bridge between baseball's two worlds.
When he began his front-office career, re-signing a player usually meant an enjoyable dinner with family, punctuated by a brief talk about money, and then on to dessert and coffee. Today the protracted angst between management and agents, with the player removed, shares more common ground with bitter divorce proceedings.
The Red Sox World Series wins in 2004 and last year spawned dozens of books from the likes of horrormeister Stephen King, to the original "Idiot," and now Yankee Johnny Damon, to any number from sports columnists and beat reporters.
But Gorman's "High and Inside" has the long echo of age and authenticity not found in any of the quick-buck exploitations of Red Sox Nation. Put on the radio and listen to a game – any game will do – and read Gorman's words as the backbeat of baseball this summer.</blockquote>
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AG/DC
May 16 2008 06:09 AM
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Bill Monboquette, leukemia:
<blockquote><a href="http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2008/05/16/monbo_fights_on/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed3" target="blank"><img src="http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Site_Graphic/2007/12/19/1198081596_0419-1.gif"></a>
Monbo fights on
Former Red Sox ace refuses to yield in the battle of his life - against leukemia
By Stan Grossfeld
Globe Staff / May 16, 2008
MEDFORD - Red Sox Hall of Famer Bill Monbouquette has always been accustomed to being challenged. He won 20 games in 1963, pitching on a seventh-place ball club. He pitched a no-hitter. He was named to four All-Star teams. And he once physically threatened a young Carl Yastrzemski, who he thought wasn't hustling.
But at age 71, "Monbo" is facing his biggest challenge.
Leukemia.
"It's just another fight, it really is," says Monbouquette, sitting in a rocking chair in his Medford living room. "And I'm looking to win."
Mike Andrews, the Jimmy Fund chairman and former Red Sox second baseman, never played with Monbouquette, but he hit against him. "He was very tough," remembers Andrews. "The ultimate battler. Nobody wanted to mess with him. He was very determined."
That's still the case.
Monbouquette has been through six cycles of chemotherapy. He needs a transfusion every three weeks. Ten years ago, there would have been no hope, but he's on trial drugs, and the acute myelogenous leukemia is in remission. That could be the case for two months or 2-3 years, according to his doctors at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
But injections that were working for a year and a half are no longer working. He needs a bone marrow and stem cell transplant, but so far, there has not been a match.
"The doctor says you can't go into a transplant failing," says Monbo, who still looks good and has kept his hair despite chemotherapy. "I go to Tufts to work out four or five times a week and walk the treadmill, but I don't have that kind of stamina anymore. I can only do 15 minutes."
Hometown pride
Monbouquette came up with the Sox in late 1958 and played the next seven seasons of an 11-year career in Boston.
In 50 years in professional baseball, he had stints as a pitching coach with the Yankees and Mets, and in the minors with the Tigers and Blue Jays. He was inducted into the Sox' Hall in 2000, and was honored with a 2004 World Series ring. In 2006, he joined Boston's Single A team in Lowell for one night as a coach so he could officially retire as a member of the organization. He'll be at Fenway Park tonight and all weekend at "Autograph Alley" at Fenway Park, greeting fans before the games and reminiscing, as if nothing was wrong.
Born and bred in working-class Medford, Monbouquette still lives there, in a middle-class house on a nice street. He didn't make big money, despite being the Red Sox ace. In fact, he earned in a year about one-10th of what Sox ace Josh Beckett makes per start. Beckett's deal, worth $6 million per year, earns him $200,000 per start, based on 30 starts. Monbouquette's salary was barely $20,000 annually.
"We didn't care," he insists. "We loved the game."
more stories like thisAnd Medford loved him back. After his 1963 no-hitter, the city sent fire engines, lights flashing, to meet the plane at Logan Airport and give him a parade ride home. They named a baseball field in his honor. Tufts University in Medford is hosting a Donor Drive, sponsored by the Dana-Farber Marrow Donor Program, June 7 in his honor. Participants can take a quick cotton-swab cheek test to see if they are a potential match to any of 6,000 people in need of this lifesaving procedure.
Monbouquette says this is not just about him - that the more people who register for the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry, the more lives will be saved, especially children's.
"I don't want to offend anybody," he says. "I don't want to take advantage of anybody. I want to make sure someone else is able to benefit from this. I hope people don't take it that way, because that's not my way at all."
Monbouquette says that as a Red Sox player, he used to go to the Dana-Farber and take a teammate.
"Guys would be moping around after an 0-for-4 and I'd say, 'Let's go.' It puts it all into perspective. What does 0 for 4 mean then?"
Sometimes he went there with Ted Williams, his fishing buddy.
"It was much smaller then," he remembers. "He'd come in there with that booming voice of his and he'd be like a magnet. Ted really loved those kids."
Monbo signed baseballs for the children. "When you're there, you'd think about your kids. When you talk about it, it's a sad thing, and when I see it now . . ."
He stops rocking in his chair, grabs a handkerchief, and wipes his eyes. He's a proud man and a tough man. He composes himself and continues.
"I cry easy," he says, almost apologetically. "It can be a very sad place. But it's also a wonderful place. And I'm going to fight, fight, fight."
Toughness shows
Right from Day 1 with the Red Sox he fought. Literally. "I remember when I first signed in 1955," he says. "They put us down the right-field grandstand, way down past the foul pole. I just finished pitching batting practice and joined my mom and dad. A couple of wiseguys down there had been drinking and they spilled some beer on my mother. They were swearing and everything else. And I said, 'Hey, I don't like your language. Enough is enough.' They said, 'Well, what do you think you're going to do about it?' I looked up at my father and he nodded and the next thing I knew, they were taking us out." He was handcuffed behind the back and placed in a holding cell. Johnny Murphy, the minor league director, got them released.
"You know what, we cleaned their clocks, too," he says.
more stories like thisMonbouquette was a workhorse righthander with pinpoint control. He posted a 114-112 record and a 3.68 ERA in 11 seasons (96 wins with the Sox on bad teams) and never made the postseason, despite stints with the Tigers, Yankees, and Giants
He refuses to bad-mouth those weak Sox teams. "What can you do? You go out there and try to battle," he says.
He absolutely hated to be taken out of a game.
"My makeup was you had to finish what you start. Even with the greatest reliever I ever saw - and that was Dick Radatz. I used to say to him, 'If you don't get him out, I'm going to kick your [butt].' Here's a 6-foot-6-inch guy, 270-pound guy. He said, 'Get up in the clubhouse and crack me a Bud, I'll be right up.' And he'd go 1-2-3."
Monbouquette remembers the exact date of his no-hitter (one walk) against the Chicago White Sox and Early Wynn.
"It was Aug 1, 1962. I had [Hall of Famer Luis] Aparicio, 0 and 2, and threw him a slider off the plate. He tried to hold up and I thought he went all the way. The umpire, Bill McKinley, called it a ball, and as I was getting the ball back from the catcher, someone shouted from the stands, 'They shot the wrong McKinley.' I had to back off the mound because I had a little chuckle to myself. The next pitch, I threw him another slider and he swung and missed. They say white men can't jump, but I did. It's about the biggest thrill I ever had."
He also motivated an immature, young Yaz, who wasn't running out ground balls and was pouting in the outfield. "He made the comment that 'if that ball goes in the corner, I'm not going to hustle after it.' I said, 'If you don't hustle, you better make sure you have your head up when you come in after the inning's over.' I chased him down and said to him, 'Let me tell you something, pal, they've run better players than you out of this town.' I was the senior guy there. I felt it was my duty to do that. He was mad for a while . . . but, boy, in '67, he couldn't do anything wrong. "
On Sept. 25, 1965, Monbouquette became the answer to a trivia question: Who was the last major league strikeout victim of the great Satchel Paige? The Negro League and major league star was 59 when he was signed to a one-game contract by Charles O. Finley of the Kansas City A's.
Monbouquette was a teammate of Ted Williams, Yaz, Willie Mays, Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford, and Al Kaline, Hall of Famers all.
He was a players' player.
One time, Mantle invited him to his Make-A-Wish golf tournament in Oklahoma, but the Mick was perplexed that Yogi Berra was a no-show.
Eventually, Berra arrived late in a police cruiser, Monbo recalls.
" 'I was at a funeral,' Yogi explained. 'And if you don't go to theirs, they won't go to yours,' " says Monbouquette, now rocking and laughing.
Perfect match in love
Monbouquette has three grown sons from a previous marriage. He met his second wife, Josephine, at his 40th high school reunion, in 1995. They were born two houses apart. They married, went on a cruise to Alaska. They found out they were a perfect match. Life was good. Then the cancer came.
"He didn't even want to take an aspirin," says Josephine.
Monbouquette hates pills. He played in the era of amphetamines. "They were right there in the trainer's room," he remembers. "You could go right in there and take 'em if you wanted to. I never touched 'em. It was in a big candy jar. We didn't think anything of them. From what I understand, they give you a little more energy. I didn't need those. I had more energy . . . I ran and ran. But now . . ."
Monbouquette's voice trails off. He stares beyond the white curtains. "I'd love to hang around to see a grandchild," he says.
Monbo went to Dana-Farber earlier this week. He took a good look around at the children. "It's the little spark in someone's eye," he says. "That's what I like. You have to reach down in your soul and say, 'Thank God,' every day we see them.
"And be thankful and grateful for what you have."
Stan Grossfeld can be reached at <i><a href="mailto:grossfeld@globe.com">grossfeld@globe.com</a></i>.</blockquote>
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AG/DC
May 29 2008 09:13 AM
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Pete Harnisch, swinging the irons:
<blockquote><table bgcolor="navy"><tr><td><a href="http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080528/SPORTS/80528104/1002" target="blank"><img src="http://www.app.com/graphics/mastlogo.gif"></a></td></tr></table>
Harnisch still has competitive fire
Former Major League pitcher playing in NJ Amateur
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS • May 28, 2008
JACKSON — A comfort zone's a funny thing.
Remaining in yours means never having to hear "I told you so.''
But strip away that cozy cocoon and expose yourself to a new world of experiences, and the result can be either incredibly rewarding or humbling, but rarely anywhere in between.
<img src="http://cmsimg.app.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=B3&Date=20080528&Category=SPORTS&ArtNo=80528104&Ref=AR&Profile=1002&MaxW=180&Border=0" align="right">Pete Harnisch's comfort zone was standing alone on a circular hump of neatly manicured clay and performing in front of 50,000 people, many of whom wouldn't have thought twice about roughing him up outside the door to the visiting clubhouse. And occasionally the home clubhouse.
But when you could always throw the ball harder than the other kids, that all became second nature. You simply rose through the ranks until reaching a level where they could actually catch up with your heater, which in Harnisch's case meant 14 big league seasons.
Yet, when a handful of casual observers with little more to offer than a polite golf clap … and a pair of fellow competitors who couldn't make contact with his fastball in a month of doubleheaders … stand alongside him on the first tee at Little Mill Country Club in Marlton on Tuesday morning, Harnisch will have more butterflies than in any of his 111 wins.
There's that comfort zone thing again.
"There's no question I'm going to be nervous,'' said the 41-year-old Colts Neck resident, who will compete at the New Jersey State Golf Association Amateur Championship for the first time, having qualified two weeks ago at Jumping Brook Country Club in Neptune.
"I just hope it doesn't take long for me to get settled down. A lot of these guys are accomplished amateur players, and I'm not. But at the same time, I want to play well. I want to make the cut and play on Thursday. I'm not just going down there so I can play a couple rounds at a different course.''
Ever the competitor.
Part of this is about filling some competitive void that winning money off your pals at Metedeconk National or Shadow Isle simply can't fill. Phil Simms is another who comes to mind, having played in the Amateur at Shore Oaks, now Eagle Oaks, a while back.
"The guy faced Bonds and McGwire. Hitting a ball between the tree lines has to be easier than that,'' said David Lees, an employee at Metedeconk National and a close friend of Harnisch's. "He has played in a lot of club championships and really enjoyed it. So now we're trying to get a little more out of him. I played with him in a member-guest at a club he belongs to in Florida in April and he shot 66, and it was a good 66, so he can play.''
But it's also about putting yourself out there, exposed, to see what happens, even though you have nothing to prove as an athlete.
Of course, that's the way Harnisch was as a pitcher with five different teams. He said what was on his mind, even if it was to his own detriment. He wore his emotions on his sleeve, even if it was to the detriment of the occasional water cooler or wall that happened to get in the way of his fist.
When he was treated for depression in 1997 with the New York Mets, he didn't hide from it. He spoke publicly about something that remains taboo for most athletes.
In other ways, however, he's very different as a golfer. He's nothing like the creature of habit he used to be … dressing and warming up at precisely the same time before every start.
Superstitions aren't part of the equation anymore. Things aren't arranged perfectly in his locker anymore, and whenever he gets to the practice range to warm up, if at all, is just fine.
He can tell you the exact sequence of events as he shook off Houston Astros catcher Scott Servais in the eighth inning on July 10, 1993, only to have Mark Grace break up his no-hit bid with a two-out bloop single at Wrigley Field. But he couldn't tell you much about a round he played two weeks ago.
And after a lifetime spent under they watchful eye of coaches, he's never taken a golf lesson, relying instead of athletic ability and guile to get the ball in the bottom of the cup.
"I might get to the club five minutes before we play, and I don't have a favorite ball marker or anything like that,'' he said. "I don't take myself that seriously when it comes to golf.
"I do have a tendency to rise to the occasion, and I think part of that is my background. Sometimes guys I play with will say "It looks like you're digging in in the ninth inning,' and, subconsciously, I probably am.
"If I want to get my game to that next level, I definitely need to take some lessons, especially when it comes to my short game. That's where I really need to improve.''
As he made his way around Metedeconk National on Wednesday morning, before heading south to get his first look at Little Mill, Harnisch was at ease with his surroundings, hitting a lot of greens and handling the slick putting surfaces. But come next week, that security will be gone.
"It doesn't matter where you came from, what walk of life,'' he said. "I happened to have been a major-league pitcher, but it's nerve-racking playing in these things. The key for me will be how quickly I can get my feet on the ground and play the way I can.''
Perhaps it's as simple as closing his eyes for a moment and envisioning himself in Yankee Stadium. Then again, ripping a drive down the center of the first fairway would go a long way toward getting Harnisch into a new comfort zone.</blockquote>
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AG/DC
Jun 16 2008 02:34 PM
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Juan Samuel, <a href="http://daily.phanaticmag.com/2008/06/samuel-set-to-enter-phils-wall-of-fame.html" target="blank">Wall of Famer</a>.
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SteveJRogers
Jun 22 2008 06:56 PM
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[url=http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/ny-spwhere225737756jun22,0,6905525.story:2ails1z6]Rico Brogna, still a good fit, with the DBacks[/url:2ails1z6]
Ex-Met Rico Brogna thriving as D-Backs scout
BY JIM BAUMBACH | jim.baumbach@newsday.com
June 22, 2008
Six years after the Tigers selected Rico Brogna in the first round of the 1988 amateur draft, they gave up on him. His mediocre statistics plateaued after several years in Triple A, making him look to be nothing more than what they call a Four-A player. Fine minor-leaguer; not a major-leaguer.
So days before the 1994 regular season began, the Tigers traded him to the Mets for Alan Zinter, another first-round pick. That trade proved to be not only the turning point of Brogna's career but a lesson that he lives by in his current job.
Now a pro scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Brogna won't easily give up on players despite what their statistics read. When he scouts minor-league games, his goal is perhaps to find the next Rico Brogna, the guy who might just need a chance at the next level.
"It's easy to see the guys who are going to be real superstars," Brogna, 38, said last week. "That's not that hard to recognize those type of talents. It's the ones that kind of all blend in, those are the guys you look for. Those are the type of guys who could turn out to be just another guy, just another player. Or is there something there that will get him to take off if he gets a chance in the big leagues? That was my road."
Midway through the 1994 season, the Mets gave Brogna a chance to play regularly. He responded by hitting .351 with seven home runs in 131 at-bats. He parlayed that into a respectable nine-year career in which he hit .269 with 106 home runs for five teams despite being diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (a form of spinal arthritis) in 1991. He took daily medication to combat this throughout his career.
Back and shoulder injuries ultimately derailed his career, forcing him to retire at 31, but Brogna has kept busy in his free time. He has coached football at the high school and college levels. He's about to enter his first year as the head coach at Nonnewaug High School in his hometown of Woodbury, Conn.
A star quarterback in high school who signed a letter of intent at Clemson but instead chose to play professional baseball, Brogna always envisioned himself coaching football after he was done playing. It's his role as a scout that's been a bit of a surprise.
One year after he retired in 2001, Brogna was hitting coach for the Double-A Reading Phillies. He quit after the season.
"Whether the timing was off or I just didn't enjoy it enough, I don't know," he said. "I just wanted to go home and get away a little bit from baseball, coach some football and spend more time at the house, family and all that stuff."
He kept in touch with former Mets reliever Jerry DiPoto, who was rising through the Rockies' front office. Brogna became intrigued by the work that DiPoto was doing, so much so that DiPoto hired him as a Rockies scout for the 2005 season. The next year, DiPoto moved to the Diamondbacks - he's their scouting director - and he took Brogna with him.
Brogna enjoys the job because it keeps him in baseball and close to home and his employers enjoy his work. Arizona deployed him as an advance scout during the playoffs last season.
"I really enjoy the evaluation part, breaking down players, studying a player's history and making an educated guess on their potential," Brogna said. "I enjoy the team-building aspect, going to games, writing reports on players. To me, that's fun."
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AG/DC
Jun 25 2008 02:10 PM
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<a href="http://www.newhaven.edu/athletics/news/23107/" target="blank">Tim Teufel</a>, Hall-of-Famer.
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AG/DC
Jun 26 2008 07:34 AM
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Tony Fernandez, baseball ambassador, Hall-of-Famer, minister in training:
<blockquote><a href="http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sports/OtherSports/2008/06/26/5990001-sun.html" target="blank"><img src="http://lfpress.ca/Images_2005/LFPlogo.gif"></a>
Fernandez praises Gaston's return
Thu, June 26, 2008
By RYAN PYETTE, FREE PRESS SPORTS REPORTER
The phone rang and Tony Fernandez interrupted a footwork drill to take a long- distance call.
"Water break," Fernandez instructed the kids taking part in his foundation's baseball camp yesterday in Florida. "You've got to master the footwork first. When you have the footwork down, the throwing part is easy."
Poor kids. The way Fernandez patrolled shortstop for the Toronto Blue Jays, they probably thought he'd field a grounder in the hole and fire a hard pill to first base -- while holding the cell to his ear.
But a Hall of Famer usually picks his spots. After teaching underprivileged children yesterday, the ex-Jay is due to travel to St. Marys today for his induction to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame Saturday.
Fernandez said he's looking forward to seeing Jays associates, teammates and fans. But one -- his old boss Cito Gaston -- will be busy that day.
"It's a great move," Fernandez said of Gaston's surprising return as Jays manager last week. "You never like to see anyone lose their job, but I feel good for Cito because it's a sense of redemption for him. It's closure after 10 years (of not getting another big-league bench job)."
Fernandez believes the Jays batters will start to relax again with Gaston back.
"He studied hitting -- he was able to learn from Hank Aaron and got the chance to play with guys like that during his career," Fernandez said.
"I believe every batter is different. Latin hitters, I know, are more aggressive early. If we see a strike, we want to swing at it. Sometimes, you have to work the count and be patient, but I believe if you get a pitch to your liking, you go after it."
There are plenty of shortstops Fernandez enjoys watching in today's game. He'll catch the odd game, but with his schedule, he often gets to see the highlights only.
"(Jose) Reyes with the Mets is one I like to watch and definitely Hanley (Ramirez) here in Florida," he said. "The major leagues are packed with good shortstops right now."
If even one or two of them embark on the path that Fernandez is taking now, the world would be a better place.
Through his Florida-based foundation, Fernandez has tried to bring some joy to poverty-stricken areas. Still working to become an ordained minister, he also has a baseball academy in the Dominican Republic and is helping children in Central and South American nations.
"Growing up in DR, there wasn't anything like this until we (ball players) started coming back from places like Toronto," he said. "Until I signed (with the Jays), it wasn't easy. But I've always wanted to run this foundation and now there's more time.
"It's strange -- I want to tell the kids something and I think about saying it in Spanish, but they're like, 'No, English first.' It's different, but they're learning, they're multi-cultural."
Fernandez won four Gold Gloves with the Jays and was picked for five all-star games in 12 seasons. He led the Jays to their first AL East title in 1985 and was part of a pivotal trade with San Diego that brought Joe Carter and Robbie Alomar to Toronto.
He was reacquired in 1993 when the team claimed its second straight World Series championship.
Fernandez goes into the ball hall along with former Blue Jays chairperson Peter Widdrington, ex-Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodger Billy Harris and longtime grassroots volunteer Gladwyn Scott.
Widdrington, Labatt president from 1973-89, was Jays chair for the back-to-back World Series championships.
Harris, from Duguayville, N.B., earned a start with Brooklyn in 1957 and worked as a relief pitcher with Los Angeles in 1959. He played in the minor leagues in Montreal and spent 15 years in the game, winning 174 games with 1,373 strikeouts. He was the last to throw to Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella.
Scott, from Hamiota, Man., spent a lifetime in amateur baseball and coached Canada's first national team -- the country's entry in the 1967 Pan Am Games. He also served as president of Baseball Manitoba and was a vice-president with Baseball Canada.
2008 CANADIAN BASEBALL HALL OF FAME INDUCTIONS
Inductees: Tony Fernandez, Peter Widdrington, Billy Harris, Gladwyn Scott
When: Saturday at 11 a.m. at the ball hall in St. Marys </blockquote>
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AG/DC
Jun 30 2008 11:19 AM
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Met replaces Met as Brian Daubach steps in for Richie Hebner as batting coach for the Nashua Pride:
<blockquote>Daubach to join Pride as team's new hitting coach
By TOM KING, Staff Writer
<i><a href="mailto:sports@nashuatelegraph.com">sports@nashuatelegraph.com</a></i>
NASHUA — Brian Daubach was considered an over-achiever during his playing days with the Boston Red Sox.
Now he's going to try to help what many consider some underachieving Nashua Pride hitters reach their potential.
An official announcement will likely be made today, but Nashua Pride general manager Chris Hall admitted Sunday the Pride have agreed to bring Daubach, 36, in as the team's new hitting coach, replacing Richie Hebner, who left just as the season started to take a sudden managerial opening in the Baltimore Orioles system.
"We're excited," Hall said. "He may be the shot in the arm this team has needed."
Pride manager Rick Miller was searching for a permanent replacement for Hebner, while veteran catcher Luis Rodriguez was serving as a part-time coach in the interim. Miller had talked with a few candidates but, according to Hall, struck an accord with Daubach, who has been living in the St. Louis area.
• Hall then met with the former Red Sox first baseman/designated hitter last week while Daubach was in Boston making some promotional appearances on behalf of the Red Sox and Boston radio station WEEI. He's expected to begin his Pride coaching duties on Tuesday at Holman Stadium when the Pride will be in the middle of a brief three-game homestand vs. Atlantic City, which is managed by former major league power hitter Cecil Fielder.
Daubach, who hit .259 in eight major league seasons and .278 in 13 minor league campaigns, had two separate stints in Boston, first from 1999-2002 and then briefly in 2004. He played with the Mets in 2005 and wrapped up his career with the St. Louis Cardinals' Triple-A Memphis team in 2006.
His best season came in 1999, when he surprised everyone by hitting .294 with 21 homers and 73 RBI. He'll also be with a familiar face on the Pride, as he was a former teammate of current Pride and former Sox reliever Rich Garces.
"He'll take some pressure off of Rick so (Miller) can focus on the bigger picture," Hall said. "Obviously, with some of our hitters struggling, we were talking about what we should do. We think Brian can help the team out.
"After I talked to him, he asked for a couple of days to think things through and then he called me. He'll be here Tuesday."
He'll have his work cut out for him. The Pride have struggled through a bad road trip, and went into Sunday's game at New Jersey dead last in the Can-Am in hitting with a team average of .259.
Saturday's loss to the Jackals was typical of what has plagued them this season: they pounded out 11 hits but only had two runs to show for it.
"Obviously the Red Sox connection is great," Hall said. "But he knows what he's talking about. He played a lot of years in the minors, he played hard and he was aggressive. He's going to be able to relate to these guys, and he'll be able to help out a lot of the younger guys as well."</blockquote>Those of you stockinng up on tickets to see the Pride play the Jersey Jackals, hoping to get a Hebner autograph, won't be be disapponted.
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AG/DC
Jul 15 2008 10:12 AM
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So, reports had Davey Johnson wearing a Mets hat at Yankee Stadium while (or before)managing the US team in the Futures Game. Anybody see that?
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holychicken
Jul 15 2008 10:28 AM
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="AG/DC":3om4qo1m]So, reports had Davey Johnson wearing a Mets hat at Yankee Stadium while (or before)managing the US team in the Futures Game. Anybody see that?[/quote:3om4qo1m]
Yup. I flipped on the game in the middle waiting for my gf to get ready for dinner hoping to maybe catch a Fartinez AB. I didn't see that, but I did see Johnson wearing the Mets cap in the dugout.
I also watched two consecutive batters get on base only to get picked off.
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Rockin' Doc
Jul 15 2008 06:56 PM
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Davey Johnson, was asked about wearing the Mets hat by a roaming reporter in the dugout. <paraphrasing>He said that he still wears a Mets hat from time to time. He said that with the Futures All Star game being held in New York, a Mets hat seemed the perfect choice for him to wear in the dugout while managing the game. </paraphrasing>
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AG/DC
Sep 05 2008 09:01 AM
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Mike Kinkade, teaching the kids hate.
<a href="http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/26018" target="_blank"><i>The Daily Evergreen</i></a>
Gold medal alumnus makes home in Pullman
Mike Kinkade had stints in professional baseball before settling down in Pullman.
Sarah Linker
The Daily Evergreen
Published: 09/05/2008
The phrase is everywhere on campus. It is often seen on T-shirts, posters and coffee mugs. Nevertheless, it expresses the ultimate, undeniable truth: Once a Coug, always a Coug.
Mike Kinkade, a former WSU baseball player and alumnus, embodies this popular saying.
During his senior year here, the native of Tigard, Ore., helped take the team to the Pac-10 North Competition in 1995. He still holds the school record in career hits with 304.
After graduating, Kinkade went on to play for several major and minor league teams. In 1995, he was drafted in the ninth round by the Milwaukee Brewers and played in the minor leagues in Louisville, Ky., the following year. He has also played on teams such as the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Tacoma Rainiers.
In 2000, Kinkade competed in the Olympic Games in Sydney and won a gold medal, playing third base for the U.S. team.
“To get a chance to play for the United States was an incredible opportunity and it was definitely an experience that I will never forget,” he said. “It was so exciting to watch so many people from different countries and cultures competing at one place. Seeing all the different flags everywhere was inspiring.” In 2006, Kinkade also played in Cuba for the U.S. baseball team that qualified for the 2008 Olympics, though injuries prevented him from competing in Beijing.
“Going to Cuba was unforgettable, especially since baseball is so huge there,” he said.
Now, after retiring from his baseball career, the 35-year-old has moved back to Pullman to settle down with his family.
“Washington State University has been great to me,” Kinkade said. “In the past, they have always let me use their facilities to work out and get ready for the next season. The baseball coaches have been great to me, too. They have let me work out with the team on many different occasions.” Shortly after moving back, Kinkade began his own business, Triple Play Development and Construction Co. The company’s latest project, Paradise Loft Condos, will have loft suites available for WSU alumni and parents.
The loft condos are in downtown Pullman and are available for people to stay during football season, as well as Mom’s and Dad’s weekends.
Though many of his family members are University of Washington fans, Kinkade still remains a die-hard Cougar, he said.
Kinkade himself will attend Homecoming and several other sports games this year.
“We already have season tickets to many of the sports games,” he said. “My wife always makes sure to schedule them on the calendar first.” Kinkade’s three boys, ages 9, 7 and 1, have already learned what it means to be a Cougar, after watching many of the games with their parents.
“All our kids have grown up Cougar fans and don’t like the Huskies – that’s what we teach them,” he said
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SteveJRogers
Sep 14 2008 06:39 PM
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The Snooze caught up with Kong
Where are they now? Former Met Dave Kingman in Lake Tahoe
BY ANTHONY MCCARRON
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Saturday, September 13th 2008, 5:15 PM
The man they called Kong and Sky King is laughing over the phone as he drives around his native Lake Tahoe. The subject is his golf game and, Dave Kingman says, there’s no comparison between his skill on the links and the days when he was one of baseball’s most-feared sluggers.
“I’m a horrible golfer,” Kingman says. “Let’s just say it was easier to hit a moving ball than one standing still.”
Kingman, who will turn 60 in December, is enjoying a quiet retirement in Lake Tahoe. He has two kids in college and one in high school and owns a local tennis club. He spends time hunting and fishing and “just being outdoors…I’m a homebody.
“Lake Tahoe is very quiet, far from the big city life. Very relaxing.”
While Kingman won’t make the final game at Shea later this month, he says he still keeps up with the Mets and other teams he played for, particularly the Giants, A’s and Cubs. He watches the A’s and Giants on local television regularly. Kingman was such a powerful slugger in his day that even his popups were events. He hit 442 home runs, 35th all-time and had seven seasons of 30 or more homers. He hit 154 homers for the Mets and four for the Yankees in eight games in 1977, when he played for four teams. He had a .236 career average and struck out 1,816 times, 10th all-time.
“I enjoyed the 17 years I played,” he says. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t on a championship team, but met a lot of friends. I enjoyed the six years on the Mets. I’m very happy and very content.
“I can’t imagine making a living any other way than hitting a baseball. When you take a good cut and pitcher and hitter alike know where it’s going, that’s the joy of being a power hitter.”
Kingman admits he wasn’t “as disciplined as the guys today. I admire these guys. I was a free-swinger.”Kingman wouldn’t discuss the role that performance-enhancing drugs might have played in the success of today’s sluggers. “I’m so distant from that,” he says. “It was not prevalent in my time, so I’d just as soon not talk about it. My last year with the A’s (1986), I played with (Jose) Canseco and (Mark) McGwire and I admired watching them, seeing how far they could hit the ball. McGwire came from my alma mater (USC).
“They were great power hitters. I’ll leave that right there.”
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Sep 14 2008 08:36 PM
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He looks great
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HahnSolo
Sep 15 2008 07:43 AM
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While Kingman won’t make the final game at Shea later this month,
Disappointing. While Seaver was the Franchise, for a few years in the '70s, Kingman was the man. Who didn't try to be Kong in a neighborhood pickup game?
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Sep 15 2008 07:56 AM
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Yeah, it is. But I'm kind of happy to now he is enjoying himself and isn;t coming off bitter.
SI tried to do a "Where are they Now" piece with him a few years back and he chased the reporter off his property.
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Farmer Ted
Sep 15 2008 07:57 AM
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Kingman posing in front of a beer tap. Classic.
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Benjamin Grimm
Sep 15 2008 08:01 AM
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="John Cougar Lunchbucket":g911dv48]He looks great[/quote:g911dv48]
He does, but I wouldn't have recognized him.
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metirish
Sep 22 2008 09:54 AM
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Interesting video of Rick Peterson breaking down Zito's curve ball.
Video is worth a look.
[url=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/12/sports/playmagazine/20080912_BARRYZITO_GRAPHIC.html:1dbma622]Peterson on Zito[/url:1dbma622]
You can hire Rick as a speaker
http://springlaketech.com/peterson/
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seawolf17
Sep 22 2008 10:00 AM
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="metirish":3s2nwkvc]You can hire Rick as a speaker
http://springlaketech.com/peterson/[/quote:3s2nwkvc]
Hey! There's a five minute sample video on there! You can halfway fix yourself right on the internet!
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Gwreck
Sep 22 2008 09:53 PM
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| ="HahnSolo"]While Kingman won’t make the final game at Shea later this month, |
Not so fast. Adam Rubin of the Daily News says in [url=http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/mets/2008/09/mets-farewell-to-be-lowkey.html]his blog[/url]:
The Mets have been hush-hush about their plans for Sunday’s Shea Stadium sendoff, but add another name to the list of attendees: Willie Mays, who played with the Mets in 1972 and ‘73, will be on hand. Other known attendees include Tom Seaver, Mike Piazza, Dave Kingman and the SNY crew.
Surfing the Mets has been told the ceremony will be after the regular-season finale and tame relative to the sendoff to Yankee Stadium last night in the Bronx. It’s believed a torch may go from Shea Stadium to Citi Field.
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SteveJRogers
Sep 23 2008 09:52 AM
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="Adam Rubin":2soo7ohx]It’s believed a torch may go from Shea Stadium to Citi Field.[/quote:2soo7ohx]
And how will that be tamer and less cheezy than bringing out team and/or stadium employees as "ghosts" of long dead players and managers?
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metirish
Sep 23 2008 09:54 AM
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A torch like the Olympic torch?....will there be protesters ?
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SteveJRogers
Sep 23 2008 09:55 AM
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Gotta love though how two writers for the Daily Snooze have mixed signals on Kingman's attendance this weekend!
I mean I'm sure he must have had a change in heart (money, pressure, whatever it could have been) between the McCarron piece and the Rubin blog, but it is still funny.
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SteveJRogers
Sep 23 2008 09:55 AM
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="metirish":17v811sj]A torch like the Olympic torch?....will there be protesters ?[/quote:17v811sj]
Sure, the gang from Loge13.com and their buddies in the Iron Triangle!
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HahnSolo
Sep 23 2008 10:47 AM
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="SteveJRogers":nytpgns8]="Adam Rubin":nytpgns8]It’s believed a torch may go from Shea Stadium to Citi Field.[/quote:nytpgns8]
And how will that be tamer and less cheezy than bringing out team and/or stadium employees as "ghosts" of long dead players and managers?[/quote:nytpgns8]
You're kidding, right?
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Benjamin Grimm
Sep 23 2008 10:51 AM
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Wait... what?
Did the Yankees really have the soda vending guy dressed up as the ghost of Lou Gehrig?
And if so, is Steve actually saying that anything else can possibly be remotely as cheesy?
(I have to confess: I know nothing about how the Yankees celebrated the closing of their ballpark. I didn't watch and didn't read any of the accounts.)
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HahnSolo
Sep 23 2008 10:53 AM
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Yes. And Yes.
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metirish
Sep 23 2008 11:02 AM
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I read something about forcing 105 year old Julia Ruth Stevens (Babe's daughter) to throw out the first pitch , wanting everything to look wonderful Hank had her warm up in the bullpen before hand.
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soupcan
Sep 23 2008 11:27 AM
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I've got questions.
When the soda guy/ghost of Lou Gehrig was introduced, was the rain-like applause hard or soft?
Also - when the ghost of Bill Dickey came out, was he able to catch Babe Ruth's non-blood relative's first pitch while still holding his tray of cotton candy?
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Benjamin Grimm
Sep 23 2008 11:30 AM
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You're making it all sound so... so... cheesy!
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seawolf17
Sep 23 2008 12:51 PM
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="soupcan":7nnlxn67]Also - when the ghost of Bill Dickey came out, was he able to catch Babe Ruth's non-blood relative's first pitch while still holding his tray of cotton candy?[/quote:7nnlxn67]
No, but he did get docked pay for missing an hour's worth of selling time. Dude didn't make his quota for the day.
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SteveJRogers
Sep 23 2008 02:53 PM
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| ="Benjamin Grimm"]
And if so, is Steve actually saying that anything else can possibly be remotely as cheesy?
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Well an actual torch would be. Symbolic, like home plate, different story.
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soupcan
Sep 23 2008 02:57 PM
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="SteveJRogers"]| ="Benjamin Grimm"]
And if so, is Steve actually saying that anything else can possibly be remotely as cheesy?
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Well an actual torch would be. Symbolic, like home plate, different story. |
Since when are you the arbiter of all things cheesy or non?
A torch, while a bit odd I admit, is nowhere near as stupid as bringing out hot dog hawkers dressed as legendary ballplayers.
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AG/DC
Sep 29 2008 09:23 AM
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Now and perhaps forever: the only Tracy in Mets History.
<blockquote><a href="http://www.tricities.com/tri/sports/professional/professional_baseball/article/local_legends_coeburn_high_schools_tracy_stallard/14457/" target="_blank"><img src="http://static.mgnetwork.com/tri/media_path/icons/logo252x90.gif"></a>
LOCAL LEGENDS: Coeburn High School’s Tracy Stallard
Published: September 28, 2008
BY TIM HAYES
BRISTOL HERALD COURIER
<img src="http://media.tricities.com/images/member_photos/photo_46.jpg" align="left">It’s both unfair and unfortunate that Tracy Stallard’s baseball career has come to be defined by one moment.
He never lost a game while pitching at Coeburn High School and his exploits are the stuff of legend in Wise County.
He put together a respectable seven-season career in the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals.
Yet, despite all those accomplishments, Stallard is still remembered most for one moment. One pitch. One game.
It occurred on the final day of the 1961 regular season at Yankee Stadium. Stallard was 23-years-old and in his second season in the big leagues with Boston. He appeared in 43 games that summer for
the Red Sox, shuffling between the bullpen and the starting rotation.
Boston manager Pinky Higgins decided to start the young right-hander in the final game of the season against a potent New York Yankees lineup.
He was solid through three innings and started the fourth inning by striking out Tony Kubek. Then Roger Maris stepped into the batter’s box.
Maris had tied Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record of 60, and this game represented his final chance to surpass a mark that had stood for 34 years.
<img src="http://media.tricities.com/tricities/img-story/images/uploads/SP-TracyStallard-1_thumb.jpg" align="left">In the fourth, he blasted a Stallard pitch down the right-field line. The ball soared into the stands, Maris placed his name in the record book and Stallard forever became the answer to a trivia question.
While Stallard and Maris will be eternally linked because of that pitch, there’s more to the Stallard story. Much more.
The native son
Carroll Dale was a standout athlete in high school during the mid-1950s. The Wise native was so good, in fact, that he went on to play football at Virginia Tech and eventually earned two Super Bowl titles as a wide receiver with the Green Bay Packers.
But there was a pitcher at rival Coeburn that Dale and many others just couldn’t solve.
“I know every time we played Coeburn, he would have 16 or 17 strikeouts and that was it,” Dale said. “I don’t think anybody was very competitive when he was pitching.”
That pitcher was Stallard, and many players went down swinging at his fastball for four unbeaten years. His best season with the Blue Knights came as a senior, when he went 8-0 and tossed two no-hitters.
Those numbers earned him a spot in the Virginia High School League Hall of Fame in 2005.
His performance also attracted major-league scouts. He signed with the Red Sox in 1956, thus beginning his professional career.
Stallard starred in the minor leagues and made his big league debut on Sept. 24, 1960, at Cleveland Stadium. In the ninth inning of Boston’s 11-7 loss to the Cleveland Indians, Stallard entered and worked a scoreless inning.
He registered his first major-league strikeout during that outing, fanning Woodie Held for the second out. Back in Coeburn, it was a big deal.
“It was a very proud town,” Coeburn resident Steve Hubbard Sr. recalled.
Stallard also saw a familiar face when he arrived in Boston. Scott County native Dave Hillman was also a pitcher for Boston, and the duo gave the Red Sox the distinction of having two Southwest Virginia natives on the roster at the same time.
“He was a great teammate,” Hillman said. “We had quite a few conversations in the bullpen and everywhere else in Boston about pitching … He could pitch, and he had good stuff.”
The moment
Stallard appeared in four games for Boston in 1960. The next year he compiled a 2-7 record and a 4.88 ERA and allowed 15 home runs, including the one on Oct. 1 that proved to be historically significant.
But there are some things that many people forget or simply don’t know about his encounter with Maris. Maris’ solo blast was the only run Stallard allowed in seven innings that day in Boston’s 1-0 loss.
It was also the only hit Maris had in seven career at-bats against Stallard.
Stallard also played five more seasons in the majors after that fateful day at Yankee Stadium. After pitching in just one game for the Red Sox in 1962, Stallard was traded to the New York Mets, along
with Al Moran and Pumpsie Green, for Felix Mantilla.
Stallard’s stats weren’t too impressive during those two seasons in New York – he went 6-17 with a 4.71 ERA in 1963 and 10-20 with a 3.79 ERA in 1964 – but keep in mind that the Mets lost a combined 220 games those two seasons, so he didn’t have much run support.
For instance, in a August 4, 1964 game against the San Francisco Giants, Stallard allowed just one earned run in 10 1/3 innings. Yet, he settled for no decision, and the Mets eventually lost 4-3 in 14 innings.
Earlier that season in a game at Shea Stadium, Stallard was again on the wrong side of history. He was the losing pitcher on June 21, when Philadelphia’s Jim Bunning tossed a perfect game against the Mets.
Stallard would be on the move again in 1964 as he and Elio Chacon were dealt to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for Gordie Richardson and Johnny Lewis.
Stallard had his best season in the summer of 1964, going 11-8 with a 3.38 ERA in 40 games (26 starts) for the Cardinals. He was in the same rotation as Bob Gibson, and his battery mates included Tim McCarver and Bob Uecker.
One year later, Stallard went 1-5 with a 5.68 ERA for the Cardinals. It was his final season in the majors.
His final tally was a 30-57 record with four saves and a 4.17 ERA in 183 major league games. He also fared well against some of the league’s greatest hitters.
Willie Mays hit just .200 and struck out six times in 30 at-bats against the kid from Coeburn, while Harmon Killebrew, Mickey Mantle and Ernie Banks were also among his strikeout victims.
These days
The 71-year-old Stallard keeps a low profile these days. In fact, numerous attempts to reach him for this story were unsuccessful.
He is still competitive, as evidenced by the fact he competes in several area golf tournaments. This summer, he won the super seniors division at a prestigious tournament at Lonesome Pine Country Club in Big Stone Gap.
Maris’ record was broken in 1998 and now ranks just seventh all-time on the single-season home run list.
Still, Maris and Stallard will be forever linked in baseball history because of that one moment in 1961.
<i><a href="mailto:thayes@bristolnews.com">thayes@bristolnews.com</a></i> | (276) 645-2570</blockquote>
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Sep 29 2008 09:30 AM
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Shame on Stallard for making Tim Hayes write that story without his contribution.
I read where Stallard was quite the dashing young stud around the city.
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AG/DC
Sep 29 2008 09:42 AM
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Decent job grinding it out anyhow by young Hayes.
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AG/DC
Oct 06 2008 03:01 PM
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Rusty Tillman is:
<ul><li>a former Mets outfielder</li>
<li>claiming to be Jose Canseco's first source for steroids</li>
<li>homeless and living in the woods</li></ul>Bridget Murphy of the The Florida Times Union joins the Rico Brogna Journalism All Star Team.
<blockquote><a href="http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/100508/met_340397424.shtml"><img src="http://www.jacksonville.com/images/headers/header_jax_horiz.gif"></a>
From pro-baseball to homeless
Hometown baseball hero Rusty Tillman lived a life many dream about. Now he calls a tent his home.
By The Times-Union
Story by BRIDGET MURPHY Photos by JON M. FLETCHER
"It's not like they put a sign out there, 'This is where Rusty Tillman's ball landed.' "
The ex-slugger is playing down his glory days from a bench in the away dugout at Fletcher High School.
But Kerry Jerome "Rusty" Tillman is basking in not-so-secret pleasure as an old schoolmate is doing his best to resurrect one day in particular.
<table align="right"><tr><td width="300"><img src="http://www.jacksonville.com/images/mdControlled/cms/2008/10/05/340397554.jpg" width="300"><br><font size="1">JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union
Rusty Tillman holds his 2-year-old daughter Sarah during an afternoon visit. While circumstances have left Tillman homeless in Mayport, he tries to make it a habit to visit his daughter daily.</td></tr></table>It was a Senators home game, must have been 1977, Fletcher Athletic Director Joe Reynolds remembers.
A slender 17-year-old in a white-and-purple uniform stepped up to the plate. Then with a crack of wood on stitched leather, Tillman ripped a moon shot.
Fans at the Neptune Beach school swarmed the fence to watch the rocket rise up, up and over the outfield wall. Reynolds was coaching on the track and sent one of his runners after the baseball. He says no one has smashed one so far since.
<table align="left"><tr><td width="300"><img src="http://www.jacksonville.com/images/mdControlled/cms/2008/10/05/340397745.jpg" width="300"><br><font size="1">Rusty Tillman was a baseball star from Fletcher High School who made it to the major leagues. Now he's homeless. He attributes part of his downfall to baseball's steroids scandal.Rusty Tillman was a baseball star from Fletcher High School who made it to the major leagues. Now he's homeless. He attributes part of his downfall to baseball's steroids scandal.Rusty Tillman was a baseball star from Fletcher High School who made it to the major leagues. Now he's homeless. He attributes part of his downfall to baseball's steroids scandal.</td></tr></table>"I remember where I was when President Kennedy was killed," Reynolds says. "... I remember when he hit that baseball."
The story means the world to Tillman, now 48. Now homeless. He is desperate to cling to the things that are good in his life. Even if he has to flash back 30 years to find them.
Those were the days when Chuck Fisette, a lefty who threw 94-mph "smoke" for the Senators, said pitchers cringed when Tillman came up to bat.
"You knew he was going to hit it out of the park. You just didn't know how far or in what direction," said the now-veteran Jacksonville corrections officer.
By the time Tillman graduated, he'd turned down a Cincinnati Reds offer. But nobody knew how far Tillman would go. Or later, after his 1979 selection by the New York Mets and time on two other major league teams, how far he would fall.
Or the kind of secrets he was keeping. Most people still don't know.
Because while Reynolds and Tillman were reminiscing in the dugout that July morning, Reynolds had no idea that Tillman was living in a tent in the woods a few miles away.
He had no idea that Tillman had been a visitor at Fisette's workplace in recent years, or that he was selling his blood plasma to buy his only luxuries: cell phone minutes, Copenhagen snuff and Sonic banana smoothies.
<table align="right"><tr><td width="300"><img src="http://www.jacksonville.com/images/mdControlled/cms/2008/10/05/340397804.jpg" width="300"><br><font size="1">JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union
Tillman in a 1977-78 Fletcher High School yearbook.</td></tr></table>Sometimes Tillman also splurged on bug spray. It saved his skin from the blood-suckers that left itchy reminders he had an address marked only by the tags surveyors left on trees.
'Tillman Country Club'
Somebody's watchdogs tattle on Tillman as he sneaks through a hole in the fence behind Mayport apartments.
But the intruder doesn't hesitate. He rolls his bicycle into knee-high weeds, away from manicured lawns, away from painted parking spots and dead-bolted doors, away from everything else there is for anybody to protect. When the animals sense it, the barking stops.
At 6 feet tall and about 200 pounds, it's mostly the creatures that slither in the grass that worry Tillman in the woods. The muscles that served him in pro ball - a bulk strangely still there - won't help with a snakebite.
He carries a flashlight at night to spot snakes and zips the opening of his gray tent to keep them out. A blue tarp on top of that tent was all the protection Tillman had during Tropical Storm Fay in August. He stayed put even after two trees crashed onto the tents of homeless friends who left.
"Living out here, I have learned a lot," he says. "I never thought I'd be here. I guess once I get back, I'll learn to appreciate what I had."
Tillman calls the maroon mountain bike that a pastor gave him - after a promise he wasn't on drugs - his "Escalade." He says he's been clean at least three months.
Tillman parks the bike in front of the camp he calls "Tillman Country Club."
His belongings include blankets, a radio and a battery-operated unit that delivers shock therapy to his sports-worn knees. He sleeps next to a saw blade and a kitchen knife for protection.
Tillman also has a portable TV. He powers it with a car battery that needs a recharge every four days. He has nothing left from his baseball days. No player cards. No uniform caps. No money.
Tillman is a man whose family wants to help - begs to help. He is a man with smarts, with guts, with pride - yes, plenty of that. It is the piston that drives him to believe that after his journey, as he says, "from the penthouse to the craphouse," he will get his life together without charity.
He knows there is a prize waiting for him when he does. Her name is Sarah Tillman. She turned 2 last month.
Nearly every evening, Tillman pedals from his camp to her mother's home in the posh Selva Marina section of Atlantic Beach. Then the father tucks the toddler into bed and slips back into the woods.
"I'll probably die from worrying someday," Tillman says by his tent on the kind of summer afternoon that demands air conditioning and cool drinks. "I think what keeps me going now is seeing my daughter graduate from high school."
If Tillman makes it to Sarah's elementary school days, he says there will be another reward too: a Major League Baseball pension of about $35,000 a year.
Kate Weatherby, Sarah's mother and Tillman's ex-girlfriend, says there's nothing she can do to help him in the meantime. "He knows what he needs to do to get things in order. It's making the choice to do that," she says.
But how does a hometown hero who rises to a champagne life skid to the streets?
There were fast times and women, divorces and drugs, is how Tillman tells it. Then there were secrets about the drugs, some Tillman said never should have come out.
Even after he bottomed out, Tillman said he never sold out his baseball family to make a buck. Instead, he accepted it as his short-lived fame slipped away with his modest fortune. Instead, he fumed as he watched ex-Oakland Athletics teammate Jose Canseco rake in attention and money with two books about baseball's steroids scandal.
Tillman said four teammates, including Canseco, bought and used the steroids Tillman smuggled from Mexico when he played for the A's. It was 1986, a year after the Mets traded Tillman and he ended up in Oakland.
Bringing the 'juice'
Once his steroids confession starts spilling out, Tillman makes it clear he's not naming names like Canseco did. Tillman sees himself as a backup outfielder who knew how to take one for the team.
"The code is whatever you do, you're on your own. I'm not going to take you down with me. I didn't get the time that these guys got. But I was one of the lucky ones who got to be around these guys. And I kept my mouth shut."
Canseco didn't mention Tillman in his two books and didn't respond to interview requests through his attorney, Gregory Emerson. In his 2008 book Vindicated, Canseco describes getting his first steroids in 1984 from a weight-lifter friend from high school.
"I was his first in major leagues," Tillman says. "... I'm the one who started bringing it from Mexico."
Tillman said he got the steroids when he'd make extra money playing in a Mexican pro league in the off-season. He started using them after a torn rotator cuff sidelined him. He'd already suffered through a wrist injury, getting so many cortisone shots that his black skin turned white around the injection site. Tillman also had multiple knee surgeries.
The steroids were cheap and easy to buy at Mexican pharmacies. And they got results.
When Tillman took charter flights back to America, he said no one would check a pro ball player's bags. When his steroids supply ran low, someone he trusted crossed the border and brought him more. The person he named refused to do a Times-Union interview.
"It wasn't that I was trying to make money on this," Tillman explains of the 30 to 40 boxes he said he sold for $400 or $500 each. "It was for the family."
He took a shot a week, something to give him an edge so he was ready to come off the bench.
"A lot of people think it's cheating, but if you don't go out there and perform, they're going to say you're a bum."
In March 1987, the A's released Tillman after 11 months and 22 games. His best highlight came off a pitch from Hall of Fame lefty Steve Carlton that he hit out of the park in a game against the White Sox on Sept. 23, 1986.
By 1988, Tillman was with the San Francisco Giants, when he hit his second and last home run in the majors. After that, he went back to the minors and was expecting another call-up after a hitting streak. But the call never came.
While Tillman said no one ever caught him, accused him or arrested him for steroids, he suspects the game blackballed him for it.
"Word might have gotten around that the real Juiceman was here," he said.
In the 1990s, Tillman went back to Mexico, helping lead his team in Tabasco to a 1993 championship. In all, he had played 38 games in the majors, 11 seasons in the minors and about six seasons abroad. Tillman says he made maybe a half-million dollars in all and has no regrets about steroids or anything else.
"There's a dark side of all of sports. What I done is what I done."
Back to work
In early August, Tillman got a job in the kitchen of a seafood place in Jacksonville Beach. After more than a year on the streets, there was joy in his voice as he prepared for his first shift.
"We'll see how it goes," he said. "I mean, I'm blessed for what I got."
<table align="right"><tr><td width="300"><img src="http://www.jacksonville.com/images/mdControlled/cms/2008/10/05/340397863.jpg" width="300"><br><font size="1">JON M. FLETCHER/The Times-Union
Rusty Tillman at his campsite in the Mayport area with the portable television he powers off a car battery in his tent.</td></tr></table>Hugh Palmer, a social worker at the mission where the ex-athlete eats and showers, said Tillman doesn't talk about his past. He said Tillman has an unusual mix of humility and confidence that makes him stand out among his peers.
"To see a homeless person that's kind of larger than life, that just goes back to homelessness can happen to anyone," Palmer said.
Tillman has plenty of job experience outside of baseball. He's had a few jobs in food service, including cooking for the Jaguars at their downtown stadium last season.
In the late 1990s, he worked as a heavy equipment operator in Jacksonville. At the time, he was married to his second wife, Alycia Tillman. The 34-year-old divorcee called her ex-husband, who also has two grown sons from prior relationships, a good provider who worked a second job at Krystal to make extra money.
The two of them went to work renovating his grandmother's home on the block he grew up on in Atlantic Beach, after marrying in 1999. It was a few doors from the home where Tillman's late father, a Jacksonville Beach city mechanic, and late mother, a school custodian, raised him, his three brothers and his sister.
But Alycia Tillman said her husband started indulging a drug addiction when the two moved back to his hometown. Tillman said he had his own reasons for their split.
When a judge granted the uncontested divorce in 2003, a copy of the order he mailed to Tillman came back marked like this: "Tillman moved. Left no address. Unable to forward. Return to sender."
In September, Alycia Tillman said she was shocked to hear that her ex was living in the woods.
"If I'd known he was in that situation, he could have come to me. If it's not Kerry's way," she said, using Tillman's given name, "he just won't do it. If he can't get it, he doesn't feel he needs it."
After a few weeks of restaurant night shifts this summer, Tillman decided he'd rather see Sarah. He was missing those nightly tuck-ins. But a lucky break was coming his way this time.
A former Fletcher schoolmate with a plumbing company agreed to hire him. Tillman had been riding his bicycle past Brian Christy's business for months, promising to learn quickly if he took a chance on him.
A month ago, Tillman got his call-up.
"Rusty knows what having a lot of money in his pocket is about and he also knows what not having any is about," Christy said. "A guy like that, you're not going to beat him down. It's his decision if he's going to get back on top of his game."
After work on Sept. 19, Tillman planned to meet Sarah and her mother at Fletcher High School. The three of them were going to dinner to celebrate the toddler's birthday.
Before that, Fletcher baseball coach Kevin Brown spotted his former classmate on the diamond. He told Tillman he was thrilled to see him at school, that he should come back and teach the boys how to really hit.
Then the coach found a couple of bats. For the first time in years, Tillman stepped onto the field and took a swing.
"Oh man, this brings back memories for real," Tillman said. "Oh yeah, I could see myself hitting some. I'd miss a whole bunch. But I'd hit some."
<i><a href="mailto:bridget.murphy@jacksonville.com">bridget.murphy@jacksonville.com</a></i>, (904) 359-4161.</blockquote>Video: http://link.brightcove.com/services/lin ... 1836680060
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AG/DC
Oct 17 2008 06:29 AM
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John Stearns makes Hall of Fame at Colorado University, who could use some good pub.
Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken this long, considering the proliferation and dubious standards of Halls of Fame, but this does shed some light on one of the most enduring number-related mysteries in Met history. According to this photo, John wore 12 as an All-America defensive back, which could explain half of the 1977 number swap with Lee Mazzilli.
<blockquote><a href="http://blog.pennlive.com/patriotnewssports/2008/10/stearns_into_cu_hall_of_fame.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://blog.pennlive.com/patriotnewssports/images/blog-header.jpg"></a>
Stearns into CU Hall of Fame
Posted by GEOFF MORROW, Of The Patriot-News October 16, 2008
<img src="http://blog.pennlive.com/patriotnewssports/2008/10/large_stearns.jpg" align="right">Harrisburg Senators manager John Stearns in his college football pose at the University of Colorado. He'll be inducted into the CU Hall of Fame on Friday. Considered one of the most prolific two-sport stars in University of Colorado history, Harrisburg Senators manager John Stearns will be inducted into the Buffaloes' Hall of Fame today in Boulder.
Stearns, 57, starred for the Colorado football and baseball teams in the early 1970s. A first-team all-conference selection as a senior safety, Stearns earned the nickname "Bad Dude" as one of the most feared hitters in team history. He still holds the Buffaloes' career record with 16 interceptions and was selected by the Buffalo Bills in the 1973 NFL draft.
But football wasn't even his best game, and he never played a down in the NFL. Stearns earned All-American status in baseball in '73, leading the NCAA in home runs (15) that year. His career numbers at Colorado include a .366 batting average, 26 home runs, 101 RBIs and 48 stolen bases.
A catcher, he Stearns was the No. 2 overall pick in the 1973 amateur draft by the Philadelphia Phillies. He was traded to the New York Mets after the '74 season and became a four-time National League all-star. After retiring, he became a scout and coach and managed the Senators in 2006 and 2008.
In other Senators news, pitching coach Rick Tomlin, who spent the past four years with the Senators, is not returning to the organization, a fact confirmed by Bobby Williams, the Nationals' director of player development.
Senators president Kevin Kulp also announced that Dan Watson, the team's secondary radio broadcaster last year, completed his internship in September and is not returning. Kulp said the team will look to hire another media intern, probably in January.
For more on Stearns' induction, see Friday's edition of The Patriot-News.</blockquote>
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Oct 17 2008 07:13 AM
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nice
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G-Fafif
Oct 21 2008 10:08 AM
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Steve Henderson [url=http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2008/10/seaver_trade_worked_out_for_ra.html]coaching his way into the World Series[/url]. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy who couldn't have given at least one already long-suffering fan a better Saturday night 28 years ago.
| ]Henderson missed winning the NL's Rookie of the Year Award by one vote to Montreal's Andre Dawson in 1977 after hitting .297 with 12 home runs and 65 RBI in 350 at-bats. In 1979 he hit .306 and in 1980, his final season in Flushing, he hit .290.
It was that year that he had his most memorable day as a Met, and perhaps his most memorable day in baseball -- until Sunday night.
On June 14, Henderson picked up his girlfriend Pam at LaGuardia, proposed to her (she accepted and they are still married) and then took her to the ballpark, where he etched his name into Mets lore for something other than being trade bait.
In what has come to be called "The Steve Henderson Game," the left fielder stroked a three-run home run to right that capped a five-run, ninth-inning rally, as the previously awful Mets stunned the Giants, 7-6, to move to within a game of .500 and within six games of the Expos in the NL East.
"That was a great, great day," Henderson said with a smile. "I'll always remember that one. But these days are pretty good, too." |
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AG/DC
Oct 21 2008 10:10 AM
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I (1) don't remember the proposal angle, which is awesome, and (2) am surprised it's got an eponymous reputation outside of here.
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G-Fafif
Oct 21 2008 10:12 AM
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It got a cameo in the Shea Goodbye DVD even.
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AG/DC
Oct 21 2008 10:19 AM
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I feel like we coined something.
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G-Fafif
Oct 21 2008 10:20 AM
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I've been calling it the Steve Henderson Game since probably no later than June 16, 1980.
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AG/DC
Oct 21 2008 10:27 AM
Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Oct 21 2008 12:06 PM
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I just checked the calendar. It turns out that it's Shoot Down AG/DC Day. It came up so fast this year.
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G-Fafif
Oct 21 2008 10:41 AM
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I've been calling it that since probably no later than eleven o'clock this morning.
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metirish
Oct 21 2008 10:56 AM
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="G-Fafif"]Steve Henderson [url=http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2008/10/seaver_trade_worked_out_for_ra.html]coaching his way into the World Series[/url]. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy who couldn't have given at least one already long-suffering fan a better Saturday night 28 years ago.
| ]Henderson missed winning the NL's Rookie of the Year Award by one vote to Montreal's Andre Dawson in 1977 after hitting .297 with 12 home runs and 65 RBI in 350 at-bats. In 1979 he hit .306 and in 1980, his final season in Flushing, he hit .290.
It was that year that he had his most memorable day as a Met, and perhaps his most memorable day in baseball -- until Sunday night.
On June 14, Henderson picked up his girlfriend Pam at LaGuardia, proposed to her (she accepted and they are still married) and then took her to the ballpark, where he etched his name into Mets lore for something other than being trade bait.
In what has come to be called "The Steve Henderson Game," the left fielder stroked a three-run home run to right that capped a five-run, ninth-inning rally, as the previously awful Mets stunned the Giants, 7-6, to move to within a game of .500 and within six games of the Expos in the NL East.
"That was a great, great day," Henderson said with a smile. "I'll always remember that one. But these days are pretty good, too." |
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Nice article on Henderson , can't say I knew much about him before now so thnaks for that.
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Farmer Ted
Oct 21 2008 12:00 PM
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God, how did I miss Henderson with the Rays?
Who else didn't know?
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AG/DC
Oct 21 2008 12:13 PM
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The funny thing about the Joe Torre era is, despite how much they struggled to get their heads aobve water, how static a roster they had.
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G-Fafif
Oct 22 2008 07:26 AM
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="AG/DC":5nmwi48e]The funny thing about the Joe Torre era is, despite how much they struggled to get their heads aobve water, how static a roster they had.[/quote:5nmwi48e]
Thinking about this observation in the context of my visceral over-the-top enthusiasm on September 28 when Doug Flynn was introduced. Next to Doc and Fonzie, two Mets I'd been waiting forever for to come home, I wasn't more elated to see anybody in a Mets jersey than Doug Flynn. It was bigger than Willie Mays to me, I think. That probably owes to the fact that those lousy teams from '77 to '80, the core of them anyway, stayed together. Those were our guys in (in my case) junior high and high school. Those were the guys we argued on behalf of, if only in our heads: Flynn, Hendu, Mazz, Blood, Swannie, Dude. They weren't very good but they were always there. Showing up counts.
It's the difference (along with the perspective of age and expectation) between those lousy teams and the later lousy teams. There was more movement in the early '90s. It's the way the industry worked then, and you'd have been crazy to have hoped Vince Coleman would have hung around one second longer than he had to. By the lousy teams of '02-'04, there was nothing charming about it, certainly not if you'd lived through other dark eras. Maybe someday somebody who was a kid in 2003 will leap to his feet for an Old Timers introduction of Ty Wigginton.
Ah, who am I kidding? I'll leap to my feet for an Old Timers introduction of Ty Wigginton.
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metirish
Oct 27 2008 06:48 AM
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Koosman
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WHERE ARE THEY NOW? JERRY KOOSMAN
BY JIM BAUMBACH | jim.baumbach@newsday.com
October 26, 2008
Jerry Koosman hasn't followed the Tampa Bay Rays all that much this season, so he only recently became aware that people are comparing their stunning run to the World Series to the '69 Mets.
But even though the former Mets lefthander might not be able to name many of the Tampa Bay players, he sure knows all about what these 20-somethings on the Rays are going through right now.
And if the Rays are anything like those Miracle Mets, then they're not looking at this World Series against the Phillies as a chance to prove their worth to America. Because the Mets definitely didn't feel that way.
"We felt we proved that we could win," Koosman said, "by getting to the World Series."
But once there, the pressure of playing on the big stage definitely was intense. "The World Series was just a new endeavor, something none of us had ever experienced before," said Koosman, who allowed four runs and seven hits in 17 2/3 innings in winning Games 2 and 5. "So every day brought something new, like a different person singing the national anthem."
Just like the '69 Mets, the Rays split the first two games of the World Series, losing the first and winning the second. Koosman said he approached Game 2 much differently from a normal game.
"Personally, I went out there with a fear of losing," he said. "I just didn't want to lose. I didn't want to be taken out of the ballgame. I didn't want to be pinch hit for. I didn't want to be behind, whatever. I was just really fearful of losing and pitched my butt off because of that.
"And in the back of my mind, I had a goal of pitching a perfect game."
Seriously? "I certainly was thinking that," he said.
Koosman wasn't perfect that day, but he was close enough. He took a no-hitter into the seventh and lasted 8 2/3 innings before Ron Taylor got the final out in the Mets' 2-1 win over the Orioles.
Now 65 years old and living in a small Wisconsin suburb about an hour from Minneapolis, Koosman made a point of watching the Rays last week. He said the biggest similarity he noticed between their team and his was the young pitching staffs, especially the starters.
The Mets' starters in the World Series were Koosman (26), Tom Seaver (24) and Gary Gentry (23). The Rays' starters are James Shields (26), Andy Sonnanstine (25), Matt Garza (24) and Scott Kazmir (24).
The two teams' histories also are similar. In their first seven seasons of existence, the Mets had an average record of 56-105. After going 73-89 in 1968, they were 100-62 in 1969 and won the World Series. In its first 10 years of existence, Tampa Bay had an average record of 65-97. Then the Rays followed a 66-96 2007 season by going 97-65.
If history repeats itself, the Rays will not lose again. In '69, the Mets won the series in five games, the last four in a row after losing the first in Baltimore. Koosman pitched Game 5, and he said he felt even more pressure to win that game than Game 2.
"You could just sense how great it would be to win in New York and not go back to Baltimore," he said. "That was the main talk in the clubhouse and during batting practice. By the time the game started, each of us, I think, put enough pressure on ourselves. The outside pressure didn't matter anymore."
Singer/actress Pearl Bailey, who sang the national anthem that day, approached Koosman just before he started his warmups. "She told me she saw the number eight and forecasted we would win," he said. "She didn't know what the number eight meant, but we won, 5-3."
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AG/DC
Oct 27 2008 07:14 AM
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How has Jerry occupied himself in retirement?
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Benjamin Grimm
Oct 27 2008 07:30 AM
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My guess: Golf!
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AG/DC
Oct 27 2008 07:36 AM
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Well, I was thinking more about income-generating occupation. Has he kept the family farm going?
Besides, I'm guessing that the golf in Minnesoata isn't top-notch.
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Benjamin Grimm
Oct 27 2008 08:25 AM
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Well, he's almost 66 years old. I hope, for his sake, that he's happily retired by now.
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AG/DC
Oct 27 2008 08:45 AM
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Well, I'm in the present perfect tense here, wondering how he's occupied himself in the interim, since his release by the Philllies.
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G-Fafif
Oct 27 2008 08:51 AM
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It doesn't speak to his present occupation, but I got a big kick out of Kooz two years ago when SNY brought him and Mookie to town as part of a big pep rally prior to the postseason and Matt Yallof asked him to describe what it was like pitching in New York in October and Jerry took the question literally and described how the cool weather was very helpful.
What a great Midwestern answer.
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metirish
Oct 27 2008 09:31 AM
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Jerry had the open heart surgery a few years back IIRC.
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AG/DC
Oct 27 2008 06:21 PM
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<a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/73929-the-duke-of-flatbush-the-story-of-duke-snider" target="_blank">Straight outa Compton</a>.
<blockquote>The Duke Of Flatbush: The Story Of Duke Snider
by Isaac Barrow (Senior Writer)
<img src="http://bleacherreport.com/images_root/image_pictures/0112/5845/snider_feature.jpg" align="left">Duke Snider is one of the best Dodgers ever to play the game. He played for the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers from 1947 to 1962. He played left field and is one of the best power hitters in baseball history...
Duke Snider is one of the best Dodgers ever to play the game. He played for the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers from 1947 to 1962. He played left field and is one of the best power hitters in baseball history.
Edwin Donald Snider was born on Sept. 19, 1926 in Los Angeles. Snider was a two-sport athlete, playing football and baseball, which he ended up pretty good at (just thought I'd put it out there).
He attended Compton High School from 1940 to 1943. As a baseball player, he was spotted by a Branch Rickey scout and was immediately signed to a minor league contract.
He played for the Montreal Royals in 1944, but had just two at bats. In 1945, he was drafted and 1946 would be his first season in professional baseball. He played for Fort Worth that year and in 1947 played for St. Paul. He played quite well there and after starting 1948 for Montreal and tearing it up, he was called up to the Dodgers for good.
Snider never made a lot of money in the bigs: "My high salary was 46,000 dollars and a Cadillac."
In 1949, he made that step up. He hit 23 home runs, drove in 92 and had a .292 batting clip.
Snider had an amazing 1950 season, hitting .321 with 30 one home runs and 107 runs knocked in. The next year, Snider folded under pressure as he saw his average dip 40 four points.
"I told (Walter) O'Malley I wanted a trade. I couldn't take the pressure anymore." Snider, being the mentally tough guy he was, adapted.
He hit .303 with 21 homers the next year and got management back on his side. The mid 50's were his glory days.
He hit 40 or more home runs in five consecutive seasons (1953-57) and averaged 42 home runs, 124 RBI, 123 runs and a .320 batting average between 1953-1956.
He dipped dramatically from 1958 to 1964. In 1958, he had 15 home runs and just 58 RBI, but still hit.312 on the season. When the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, his fold under pressure became evident. In his remaining years with the Dodgers, his career high in homers was just 23. His career low in Brooklyn was 21.
In 1963, Duke played for the Mets. He struggled and wasn't the slugger he was expected to be. He had 14 home runs, 45 RBI and a .243 batting average.
On Opening Day of 1964, the Giants picked him up. He was obviously washed up. He had four home runs, 17 RBI and an anemic .210 batting average.
31 years later in 1995, two Hall of Famers: Snider and Willie McCovey pleaded guilty to tax fraud. Snider failed to report income from sports memorabilia sales and sports card shows.
In 1980, Snider was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He finished his career with 407 home runs, 1,333 RBI and a .295 batting clip. Since Johnny Podres died in January, Snider is the only living Dodger who was on the field for the 1955 World Series.
What I think is funny is how much of a joke he thinks baseball is today. He is sick of the millionaires in baseball. He said, "Man, if I made a million dollars, I'd come at six in the morning, sweep the stands, wash the uniforms, clean out the office, manage the team and play the games."
What do you say to that, Manny?</blockquote>
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MFS62
Oct 28 2008 07:52 AM
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And not one mention about how, after he retired, Snider went on to be one of the biggest (in terms of crop volume) avacado growers in the country?
Later
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AG/DC
Oct 28 2008 07:59 AM
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It's admittedly a pretty weak piece for a guy tagged as a "senior writer." He gets three quotes from Snider --- wow, old timers are jealous of rich latter day players and think they're prima donnas; shocker! --- and seems to paste the rest togeher from wikipedia or the paper's obits-of-the-future file. He goes chronologically through the career, but his post-career detail includes a one-sentence paragraph about 1995 and then back to 1980. Barely C- work.
You get a Hall-of-Famer on the phone, get some juice. Get him to fill in some historical detail that's not on the record. How about calling Manny Ramirez for a rebuttal?
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HahnSolo
Oct 28 2008 09:11 AM
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Help me with my Duke knowledge. Wasn't he a Center fielder? why does the writer call him a left fielder in the open?
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AG/DC
Oct 28 2008 09:18 AM
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Good point. The writer seems to be in an unswerving devotion to failing his reader.
Snider broke in as a utility outfielder but never played left primarily. He might have landed there, but he quickly took over center when Pete Reiser battered himself into obscurity by running into outfield walls.
He played a lot of right at the end of his career, but anybody who knows a bit about the guy would call him a centerfieder.
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G-Fafif
Oct 28 2008 09:31 AM
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If Snider weren't a centerfielder, Terry Cashman would have written "Willie, Mickey and Whoever Flanked The Duke".
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 07:57 AM
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Rick White, getting in shape:
<blockquote><table bgcolor="white" border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" bordercolor="blue"><tr><td><a href="http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/s/content/oh/story/sports/2008/10/29/sns102908sprickwhite.html" target="_blank"><font size="6" color="blue"><b>Springfield News-Sun</b></a></td></tr></table>
Ex-Ray, Phillie won't take sides
Springfield's Rick White had stops in Tampa Bay and Philadelphia during his 13-year MLB career.
By David Jablonski
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — People ask Rick White all the time, "Do you miss the game?" It's a natural question to pose to a pitcher who appeared in 613 Major League Baseball games for 11 teams over a 13-year period.
At this time of year, as he watches two of his former teams play each other in the World Series, the Springfield resident White can expect to hear the question even more often.
"I don't miss anything but the game itself," White said on Tuesday, Oct. 28. "I miss being out there competing. I wish I was in one of those bullpens waiting for the phone to ring."
White played for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 1998, the year the expansion team entered the league, until July 2000 when he was traded to the Mets. In his 2½ seasons in Tampa Bay, he compiled a 3.81 ERA in 248 innings. He still ranks eighth in franchise history in games pitched (145).
None of the current Rays were with the team when White played for them, but he did play with assistant coaches Dave Martinez (1998-2000) and Tom Foley (with Pittsburgh in 1994).
From 2001-07, Tampa Bay ranked last in AL attendance every season. But in its first two seasons, it ranked in the middle of the pack, and White remembers the early years for the franchise as an exciting time.
"It was a lot of fun to be a part of that, to be part of something new," he said. "In my first three years, we had teams that were good enough to win. We just couldn't put the pieces together. We weren't able to stop those big losing streaks."
White pitched for the Phillies in 2006, compiling a 4.34 ERA in 38 relief appearances. He threw well enough to come away with positive impressions of the notorious Phillies fans.
Watching the games over the last week, White said he's not rooting for one team.
"I've got a bunch of friends on both teams," he said. "Obviously, the Phillies haven't won it in a long time. It'd be nice for them to win it. I like the National League game better, but I would be fine with whoever won this one."
White has not pitched since the end of the 2007 season. For the first time in his life, he was able to take his family on a summer vacation this year.
Still, he hasn't given up on baseball. He plans to meet with some general managers after this season about getting into coaching or scouting. He also plans to get his arm in shape — just in case.
"I highly doubt it, but my agent says to go ahead and work out and stay in shape," White said. "If somebody is interested, I'll try out. If not, I'll be in shape to throw batting practice."</blockquote>
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G-Fafif
Oct 29 2008 07:59 AM
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When did Edgy DC come out of retirement?
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 08:07 AM
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Had to fly my Rube Walker flag.
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G-Fafif
Oct 29 2008 08:38 AM
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Not that there's ever a bad day for it, but any particular reason today is Rube Walker Appreciation Day?
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 08:51 AM
Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Oct 29 2008 09:13 AM
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AG/DC is still working his way through Metly posting levels, while my alter ego Edgy DC, having surpassed 11,000, posts retains the permanent posting designation of his choice --- Rube Walker.
When I saw Zvon had created a new avatar for that designation, I had to switch back to Edgy.
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G-Fafif
Oct 29 2008 08:54 AM
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Thank you for indulging the question. It's a very nice avatar.
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 08:54 AM
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It strikes me that, among multiple posting names here, at the old Crane Pool, and at the MOFo, I probably have over 100,000 posts, and have goofed off more than any internet poster in Metdom.
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Benjamin Grimm
Oct 29 2008 09:08 AM
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My post total is second to yours, but I never reset myself to zero. My 20,000 or so posts includes the ezBoard totals as well as my name change.
I think your biggest competition for all-time post leader might be Scarlett/Cookie Mom/metfairy/Inside Pitcher...
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 09:14 AM
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Scarlet put in a six-month retirement, but she certainly pre-dated me at the MOFo. I don't know how many handles she worked there.
She also had a career at Grand Slam Single.
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Vic Sage
Oct 29 2008 09:33 AM
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ah, yes, the GSS.
I was banned there... a distinction i wear with honor.
I don't even remember why.
I think i tried to incite an insurrection against their overbearing administrators.
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SteveJRogers
Oct 29 2008 09:44 AM
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="Vic Sage":1f3jzt7s]ah, yes, the GSS.
I was banned there... a distinction i wear with honor.
I don't even remember why.
I think i tried to incite an insurrection against their overbearing administrators.[/quote:1f3jzt7s]
GSS is spoken of in the same terms quite often over at the MOFO.
Kind of feel sorry I missed out on all that fun.
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metsguyinmichigan
Oct 29 2008 09:58 AM
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As a relative newby, may I must ask what the MOFo is?
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 10:03 AM
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Mets Online Forum. This forum was established largely in response to a downclick in the level of discourse there.
That's right, once we were trying to set a standard.
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Willets Point
Oct 29 2008 10:07 AM
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MetsOnline itself was a fan-built website in the mid-90's that predated the Mets having a website. MetsOnline was killed by a cease & desist in 2002, although I think there may still be a bulletin board out there where they're calling themselves the MOFO.
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Benjamin Grimm
Oct 29 2008 11:28 AM
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It sounds like Steve was talking about it in the present tense.
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SteveJRogers
Oct 29 2008 12:34 PM
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I was referring to the BB that Willets mentioned. Several of the posters on the current MOFO were on GSS (yet another Met forum named after Ventura's infamous game winning hit in Game 5 1999 NLCS of course), and got the boot in the same fashion as Vic mentioned, for pretty much the same reasons.
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 12:43 PM
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Infamous? Are you a Braves fan?
Steve seems to know more about the history of this place than I do, and I don't know hardly anything about him.
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Benjamin Grimm
Oct 29 2008 12:51 PM
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Yeah, really. I wouldn't put Robin Ventura's game-winning shot in the same category as Pearl Harbor.
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G-Fafif
Oct 29 2008 04:15 PM
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| ="Benjamin Grimm"]Yeah, really. I wouldn't put Robin Ventura's game-winning shot in the same category as Pearl Harbor. |
October 17, 1999: A date which will live in famy.
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A Boy Named Seo
Oct 29 2008 04:21 PM
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Rogers was either going with the popular, but controversial Lucky Day/El Guapo definition of "infamous", or he's just gettin' all [url=http://www.braves-nation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7574:1drkl6im]Chipper J. Jeets[/url:1drkl6im] on us.
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G-Fafif
Oct 29 2008 04:26 PM
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Steve's been everywhere, man...
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seawolf17
Oct 29 2008 05:39 PM
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="A Boy Named Seo":1gbomtrk]Rogers was either going with the popular, but controversial Lucky Day/El Guapo definition of "infamous"[/quote:1gbomtrk]
Hilarious. "Jefe? Do you know what is a plethora? Well, you told me I have a plethora. I would not like to think that a person would tell someone he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has no idea what it means to have a plethora."
One of the best movies ever.
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Edgy DC
Oct 29 2008 05:45 PM
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Well, maybe one of the best million films ever. I can go for that.
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Kong76
Oct 29 2008 06:17 PM
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EDC: Steve seems to know more about the history of this place than I do, and I don't know hardly anything about him <<<
StevieJStalker sees all!
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Frayed Knot
Oct 29 2008 07:39 PM
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="SteveJRogers":2nu9sgsu]Several of the posters on the current MOFO were on GSS and got the boot in the same fashion as Vic mentioned, for pretty much the same reasons.[/quote:2nu9sgsu]
What Vic did to got booted (and me IIRC) had nothing to do with what others did.
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Edgy DC
Oct 30 2008 10:58 AM
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Dan Reilly, knew when to keep his mouth shut.
Check out the piping on ihs original uni.
<blockquote><a href="http://www.thevillager.com/villager_287/mrmet.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.thevillager.com/villager.jpg"></a>
<table width="600"><tr><td><img src="http://www.thevillager.com/villager_287/stadium.jpg"></td></tr><tr><td align="right">Villager photo by Will McKinley</td></tr><tr><td>Dan Reilly, the original Mr. Met, at Shea Stadium recently. Reilly with his Mr. Met baseball head back in the mid-1960s when he was the team’s mascot at home games.</font></td></tr></table>
Mr. Met recalls heady times as first mascot for Amazin’s
By WILL McKINLEY
Dozens of Mets legends were honored at Shea Stadium’s closing ceremony last month, from Tom Seaver to Mike Piazza and all the lesser lights in between. But one seminal figure in the team’s history was conspicuous by his absence.
Dan Reilly, the first man to wear the costume of iconic mascot Mr. Met, watched the bittersweet festivities at home on TV like an ordinary fan. But the longtime Soho resident and author of the new book “The Original Mr. Met Remembers,” is anything but.
“I’m disappointed they didn’t invite me back, but I’m not angry,” said Reilly, who played the Mets mascot on and off the field from 1964 through 1967, the first three of his nine years with the club. “Seaver, Koosman, Swoboda, all those guys were my buddies. And I figured they’d like to see me again, too, just to say hello, a few handshakes, keep in touch. They all still call me Mr. Met.”
Now 70 and retired, Reilly’s ties with the team go back to Shea’s inaugural season, when he joined the Mets ticket sales staff two months before the debut of their new home.
“It was a snowy February morning the day of my interview,” Reilly said last week, as he walked the grounds of the soon-to-be-demolished stadium. “From the outside, it looked like an orange-and-blue skeleton. Nothing was happening and nobody was around. Inside, they were still putting the seats in. And now I’m watching them take those seats out. It’s sad.”
Sadness is not an emotion readily associated with Reilly, a jovial, outgoing raconteur who worked in the restaurant business after leaving the Mets in 1972, and recently concluded a four-year stint as the host of game-day ferry rides to Shea. On boat or barstool, the Richmond Hill, Queens, native spins colorful tales of the early days of the Amazin’ Mets with a hearty laugh and, on this occasion, a misty eye.
“We were a small organization back then, no superstars,” said Reilly, clad in a Mets jersey and still using “we” and “us” when referring to the team he left 36 years ago. “I drank with those guys. I knew where all the good Irish bars in Queens were. And I knew when to keep my mouth shut. That’s why everyone liked me.”
Reilly was front and center for nearly all of the significant events of the team’s first decade: Shea’s first opening day; the 1964 All-Star Game; Casey Stengel’s on-field 75th birthday celebration and the infamous after-party at Toots Shor’s, where the legendary manager broke his hip and ended his career; the arrival of 1967 Rookie of the Year Seaver; the managerial tenure of Reilly’s boyhood idol Gil Hodges and, most memorably, the Miracle Mets World Series victory on Oct. 16, 1969.
“As soon as that game was over, I ran from the press box down to the clubhouse,” Reilly said 39 years and one day later, as he traced the trajectory from the top of the stadium to the bottom with his finger. “There’s a picture of me in the 1970 yearbook, being doused with champagne by Jerry Grote. Those were my guys. They were the best.”
In addition to his daily responsibilities, first in ticket sales and later in the promotions department, Reilly also served as the V.I.P. handler for visiting celebrities and politicians, ran the Mets Speakers Bureau program and filled in as public address announcer at Shea for three weeks in 1966. He also wished four members of a British rock band good luck as they ran on to the field for an August 1965 concert.
“I said, ‘Break a leg, guys,’ and one of them said, ‘Thanks mate!’” Reilly remembered. “I don’t know which one it was because I didn’t know who The Beatles were back then.”
But Reilly’s fondest memories began on May 31, 1964, when he donned the papier-mâché, baseball-shaped head of the first mascot in Major League Baseball history. The Mets lost both sides of a doubleheader that day to the Giants, whose defection to California with the Brooklyn Dodgers after the 1957 season inspired attorney Bill Shea’s successful crusade to bring National League baseball back to New York. But, between games of that doubleheader, a star was born.
“The stadium was packed and I was nervous,” Reilly said with a laugh. “They had told me to play it straight, just walk out there and wave, but the kids started swarming down to meet me in the stands. I shook hands, posed for pictures, signed autographs. After that, I got cocky and started dancing. It was an instant hit. Back then, the fans might not have recognized the players, but they always recognized Mr. Met.”
As Reilly remembered the glories of four decades past, he struck up a conversation with a current Mets fan, 48-year-old software engineer Mark Szemberski, who was snapping photos of the now-shuttered stadium.
“Of all people to meet, the last time I’m at Shea — Mr. Met!” Szemberski exclaimed, as he posed for a picture with the unlikely celebrity. “You made my day. I hope they invite you back when they open the new stadium.”
Reilly handed Szemberski his business card, which features a photo of his younger self in a regulation Mets uniform, holding the outsized head that made him famous. The original Mr. Met is smiling broadly, as always.
“Baseball is tradition,” Reilly said, as he bid final farewell to Shea from a departing 7 train. “Mr. Met touched people then, and he still does. I think it’s important to remember how we used to do it, what Shea used to be like. If we do, there will always be a Shea Stadium.”
“The Original Mr. Met Remembers: When the Miracle Began” (138 pages) is available at <i><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookSearchResults.aspx?Search=original%20mr.%20met%20remembers" target="_blank">iUniverse.com</a></i>.</blockquote>
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HahnSolo
Oct 30 2008 11:22 AM
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The uniform on the right suggests that photo is from '86 (racing stripes and anniversary logo), not from the early sixties.
(I see Edgy beat me to that).
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soupcan
Oct 30 2008 11:23 AM
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Yeah - something's wrong there.
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Benjamin Grimm
Oct 30 2008 11:38 AM
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I'd guess that in 1986 he was just visiting with his old head.
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seawolf17
Oct 30 2008 12:07 PM
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="Benjamin Grimm":36b19cxk]I'd guess that in 1986 he was just visiting with his old head.[/quote:36b19cxk]
Possibly for a 25th anniversary event, which would make sense.
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Edgy DC
Nov 03 2008 02:40 PM
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The High-A Inland Empire 66ers of San Bernardino (real name!) have announced their coaching staff, including John Valentin as batting coach and Charlie Hough as pitching coach.
I confused Hough with Verne Ruhle and thought he was dead.
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Edgy DC
Nov 10 2008 02:45 PM
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Candidates being looked at for the Seattle managerial job include Jose Oquendo, the prototype for Rey Ordoñez; Joey Cora, who managed for the Mets in the minors, and Randy Ready, who has one of the porniest names in baseball history.
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sharpie
Nov 11 2008 11:36 AM
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Soon we can enjoy the literary stylings of Mike Piazza:
Mike Piazza, a 12-time All Star for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets, has signed a deal to write his autobiography for Simon & Schuster. V-p and senior editor Bob Bender acquired world rights from David Black, CEO of Black Inc., and Dan Lozano, Piazza’s sports agent. Publication is slated for 2010.
In the book, Piazza, who retired just before the 2008 season, will discuss controversies of his career, including the 2000 World Series incident when Roger Clemens threw a shattered bat at him, and the press conference he held to deny rumors that he was gay. The autobiography will also cover Piazza’s tumultuous relationships with the Dodgers, their front office and Tommy Lasorda; as well as his former teammates Bobby Valentine, Pedro Martinez, Rickey Henderson and others.
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Edgy DC
Nov 11 2008 11:40 AM
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He actually retired well into the 2008 season when he hadn't gotten interest from anybody. And Bobby Valentine wasn't his teammate.
Who writes press releases these days?
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Nov 11 2008 11:47 AM
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Who cares. I'm going to read the hell out of that book.
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Edgy DC
Nov 11 2008 11:52 AM
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If'n I were you, I contact that agent NOW!!!! and show him your writin' credentials.
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Benjamin Grimm
Nov 11 2008 11:55 AM
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Good thought.
Writing the hell out of the book would be even better than reading the hell out of it.
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HahnSolo
Nov 11 2008 12:19 PM
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Knowing the publishing industry as I do, I can tell you that acquiring editor had absolutely no interest in the writin' credentials in the manuscript and cared primarily about the name on page 1.
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Benjamin Grimm
Nov 11 2008 12:21 PM
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So Piazza now shops around for a ghost, I suppose?
I figure he'll go with a sportswriter he had a good relationship with during his playing days.
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G-Fafif
Nov 11 2008 12:23 PM
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Or a David Frum/Michael Gershon otherwise underemployed wordsmith of the right. Mike goes that way.
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HahnSolo
Nov 11 2008 12:25 PM
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="Benjamin Grimm":r3mb7fqz]So Piazza now shops around for a ghost, I suppose?
I figure he'll go with a sportswriter he had a good relationship with during his playing days.[/quote:r3mb7fqz]
I doubt Piazza does the shopping unless there's a writer he was really close to and insists on using him. Otherwise, I expect the literary agent would work with the publisher to find someone.
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Edgy DC
Nov 11 2008 12:28 PM
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Which is fucking why you should be acting NOW!!!!
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G-Fafif
Nov 11 2008 12:30 PM
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I'm Richie Hebner for another eight posts or so. I'm not going out of my way to pick up any ground balls for a little while.
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sharpie
Nov 11 2008 12:32 PM
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David Black, the agent, reps many bigtime sportswriters (including Mitch Albom of "Tuesdays With Morrie" fame). Piazza would have already come attached with a writer by the time the deal was made.
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Benjamin Grimm
Nov 11 2008 12:32 PM
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I don't want to stir up an ugly intramural competition, but GFafif should also throw his hat in the ring.
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G-Fafif
Nov 11 2008 12:40 PM
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="Benjamin Grimm":3prysgfg]I don't want to stir up an ugly intramural competition, but GFafif should also throw his hat in the ring.[/quote:3prysgfg]
Thanks, but first I have to finish my "as told to myself" thing.
After I stop being Richie Hebner.
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Edgy DC
Nov 12 2008 10:23 AM
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Former Pitchers Leading Today's Brogna News:
<ul><li><a href="http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h-MLHW75WUfNm-O38Qvkhs7ljfaA" target="_blank">Hideo Nomo</a>, teaching the forkball to young buffalos.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.baynews9.com/content/66/2008/11/11/402062.html" target="_blank">Frank Viola</a>, getting into the analyst game.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.dailypilot.com/articles/2008/11/11/sports/dpt-spseaver111208.txt" target="_blank">Tom Seaver</a>, advising the youth of today and liquoring up Tommy Davis.</li></ul>
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Nov 12 2008 10:41 AM
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Read also where Leiter was joining the staff at MLB-TV. I guess that means he's leaving the NO! network.
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Edgy DC
Nov 13 2008 08:14 AM
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So, if you're like me, you grew sick of stories of Lenny Dykstra, swinging finance trader, about two paragraphs into the first one, but now the angle isn't that he's just another player, but that he's actually flourishing during these hard times. The claim is that he's <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/11/lenny_dykstra_is_a_stock-picki.html" target="_blank">82-0 in stock picks</a> endorsed in his newsletter.
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Edgy DC
Nov 13 2008 01:36 PM
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Rick Sweet returning as manager of the Louisville Bats.
Local favorite Roger Mason joins the Traverse City Beach Bums as pitching coach.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Nov 13 2008 01:38 PM
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Ron Gardenhire gets an extension.
Leiter btw, will still work for Al-Yankazeera. Reynolds tho is out at SNY, raising speculation that Bobby Ojeda is on his way in.
I think I speak for everyone ever by saying it would be nice to mix a 73er or 99-00er in there.
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TransMonk
Nov 13 2008 01:42 PM
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="John Cougar Lunchbucket":1jn4n2h7]I think I speak for everyone ever by saying it would be nice to mix a 73er or 99-00er in there.[/quote:1jn4n2h7]
Didn't Zeile get a shot once?
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Benjamin Grimm
Nov 13 2008 01:44 PM
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I was thinking a 69er: Ron Swoboda.
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Edgy DC
Nov 13 2008 05:02 PM
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Sam Perlozzo joins the Phils. Bang.
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metsguyinmichigan
Nov 13 2008 11:01 PM
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="Edgy DC":828l4i24]Rick Sweet returning as manager of the Louisville Bats.
Local favorite Roger Mason joins the Traverse City Beach Bums as pitching coach.[/quote:828l4i24]
Traverse City is a beautiful resort area about two hours north of me. The team is fairly new, and plays in an independent league.
We used to play in an all-newspaper softball tournament in Traverse, and it was fun until the Detroit News took it over and started stacking its team with ringers who didn't work for the paper. Cads!
I'll have to head up this summer and see a game and talk to Mason!
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Edgy DC
Nov 14 2008 10:19 AM
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Holy Foli, Batman, it's Sammy Drake! In a Mets hat!
<blockquote><a href="http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/sports/stories/5605298.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://morningsentinel.mainetoday.com/images/ms797.gif"></a>
An old friendship, forged 50 years ago, is rekindled
AUGUSTA -- It was the New York Mets cap on his head. This being Red Sox country, people had to stop the athletic, older man this week and ask.
"What's up with the hat?"
That's when C. Wayne Mitchell glanced at his guest and stepped in.
"This is Sammy Drake. Don't you know who he is?"
No one did, to the amusement of both men.
"He's an original member of the Mets," Mitchell would tell them. "He's my friend."
It's a friendship forged nearly 50 years ago, interrupted by decades of separation and searching by Mitchell and resumed about four years ago. Mitchell's family, aware of his wish to reconnect, trolled the Internet, finding Drake at a Mets reunion in New Jersey.
Sunday, Drake came to Mitchell's home in Sidney for a four-day visit. They laughed and joked and marveled again at the strength of a relationship neither fully understood when it began on a hot U.S. Army base in the deep south at a time when full integration was still a dream.
Drake was a draftee from Little Rock, Ark. trying to keep alive his dream of playing major league baseball while he was serving his country. Mitchell was the 7-year-old son of a career soldier returned from duty in Germany and new to the Georgia base. That summer, the young boy discovered the Fort Gordon Rams and a young, talented infielder who asked Mitchell if he wanted to be the bat boy.
"I could see he was interested in baseball," said Drake during lunch at a local restaurant Wednesday.
Drake remembered when he fell in love with the game. The two played catch. Sometimes, Mitchell would go the base recreation center where Drake worked.
They were so different in age and in race. Then, Mitchell was too young to understand what it meant to be a young black adult in Georgia. Drake, of course, did.
A year or two after meeting, Mitchell's father was transferred to Taiwan. Mitchell got a baseball glove, a bat, a handshake, and much later, when he could fully understand, an outlook on life.
"Of all the hello's and good-bye's, his was the one I remember most," said Mitchell, while Drake nodded. "I knew a thank-you would be in order."
Mitchell's story to this point became a column I wrote four years ago. Then, I couldn't reach Drake who had returned to his home in Los Angeles. Wednesday, at lunch, I introduced myself. Meeting Mitchell wasn't a coincidence, Drake said. There was a reason that maybe still isn't clear 50 years later.
Drake was surprised, but not stunned when Mitchell walked up to his table at the hotel where the Mets reunion and autograph session took place. He's met a lot of people in his 74 years and has usually found the goodness in them, even under trying circumstances.
"At first I thought he as a typical fan," Drake said. "When he started talking about Fort Gordon I knew right away."
Drake can't say he thought about Mitchell much over the years. Neither did he forget the young bat boy who would go to the gym to fold towels and stay out of the way of the soldiers.â
"He would get picked on by the ballplayers a little bit. It was all in fun, but I could see it bothered him. I'd say, come with me. Let's play catch."
Drake signed with the Chicago Cubs for $1,500 and was later assigned to Macon, Ga. to play for Pepper Martin in the so-called Sally League. He was the first African-American to play in the league he says. The most hurtful part of that season?
"Not being able to sleep in the same hotels with my teammates. Not being able to eat with them. I could get carry-out or go across the river to a (black-owned restaurant.)"
In the next breath, Drake tells of Martin's effort to get him seated with the team at a restaurant in Indiana. Martin, nicknamed the Wild Horse of the Osage, was a third baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals' "Gashouse Gang" in the 1930s and colorblind.
Drake remembers one of his first trips to spring training with the Cubs after his two years in the Army. He was one of three black ballplayers in a group of 50 minor leaguers were assigned to a barracks-style building.
"Every night I would pray. They must have thought I was from another planet.
"But I had a good spring training. When camp broke, everyone was on their knees praying but two."
Monday, Mitchell and Drake had breakfast with Roger Katz, the mayor of Augusta and a baseball fan. Katz invited Drake to speak to the city council that night. He told the story of a Cubs tryout he attended in Winnipeg, Manitoba and the sore arm he had. He couldn't throw across the infield. Discouraged, he called the grandmother who raised him. Don't worry, he was told. She would pray for him.
"We had a big snowstorm," said Drake smiling. "We couldn't use the field for two weeks. I soaked my arm in the bath tub every day. I was ready."
The Mets drafted him off the Cubs roster. His two-year, major league career was the proverbial cup of coffee. In 53 games he hit .153. His older brother, Solly, played parts of three seasons with the Cubs, Phillies and Dodgers. Together, they were the first African-American brothers to play major league baseball.
Early Thursday morning, Drake said good-bye to Mitchell and his wife, Bonnie, and began his trip back to Los Angeles. A graduate of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, he's a retired investigator for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He teaches Sunday School at the Greater Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, where his brother, the Rev. Dr. Solomon Drake, is pastor to a 6,000-member congregation.
They've listened to the story of how a young white boy and a young black adult became lasting friends. It shouldn't be forgotten. </blockquote>
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Edgy DC
Nov 19 2008 10:38 AM
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<a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-689-Spiritual-Life-Examiner~y2008m11d19-This-old-ballplayer-understands-life-better-than-most" target="_blank">Jack Aker</a>, out of work and vulnerable like the rest of us.
<blockquote><a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-689-Spiritual-Life-Examiner~y2008m11d19-This-old-ballplayer-understands-life-better-than-most" target="_blank"><img src="http://image.examiner.com/img/logos/newlogo.gif"></a>
This old ballplayer understands life better than most
by Rabbi Ben Kamin, Spiritual Life Examiner
Jack Aker, a name known to aficionados of the national pastime, is something of a legend. But if his baseball card could talk, you’d hear a lot more than breezy play-by-play. Here’s a guy who made more appearances (495) as a relief pitcher than anybody in his time, but found himself taken out of the game quite before he expected. Like anybody suddenly not doing the thing we’ve been doing forever, Jack found himself looking down the abyss—he was tearful, anxious, and despondent.
Baseball players are real people, in spite of the hype we impose on them, and their souls hurt, their spirits droop, just like all hard-working Americans.
Jack won the Sporting News “Fireman of the Year” award in 1966 and played for the Kansas City and then Oakland Athletics, the Seattle Pilots, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves, and New York Mets. When I met him some years ago, he was pitching coach of the Cleveland Indians; I caught my breath short, extending and receiving hands of friendship with a living and breathing major leaguer who was on a first-name basis with such stars as Phil Niekro and Tom Seaver.
I saw him at his tallest. Arriving on the green natural field before game time, Jack came for me, in full regalia—snappy cap and shimmering team jacket. He walked across fresh, chalky baselines with a certain, lanky royalty. There were the first faint smells of popcorn and beer from the bowels from the bowels of the old stadium as the coach escorted me into the clubhouse.
Jack took me into a comfortably large room filled with open booths that served as repositories for the players. “Here,” he declared, “we meet and discuss the game plan.” Like a knothole sentry, he walked past the colognes and hair dryers of the bath area towards a large bin containing thick, polished baseball bats. He said, somberly: “Nobody can touch a man’s bat. You see, Ben, they are numbered according to his uniform number. The bat is a very personal matter to a guy. Nobody can touch it.”
I understood what a sacrilege was and I shook my head in awe of power and success.
A little over a year later, following a season of fallen expectations and profits, Jack (and the team manager) were both summarily dismissed from their positions. Now, this same Jack, record-holder, my invincible hero, sat in the front of my automobile, shoulders slumped, his head in his hands. We were taking a ride in the country as the venerable coach tried to sort things out.
His prestige, his income, and his self-image were suddenly as powdery as the faded chalk lines of that emerald ball field he had once ruled.
Jack was gone, the manager was gone, as well as a number of the muscular, sleek, swaggering players I had met that shining afternoon—in a different season.
A person is so much more than his baseball card, her resume, his cellular list of “contacts.” Jack is doing okay, taking in his children and grandchildren, knowing well what it means to be laid off, discarded, discontinued. Maybe this old ballplayer understands America right now better than most.</blockquote>
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MFS62
Nov 19 2008 11:00 AM
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Thank you, Edgy.
Anyone who ever lost a job knows that you didn't have to bold that portion. We would have noticed it and commiserated(sp?) with Jack.
But the way it was said was an unexpected pleasure in a piece like that, wasn't it?
Later
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Edgy DC
Nov 19 2008 11:03 AM
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I was just imitating the original publishing, which set it as a pullquote.
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Farmer Ted
Nov 19 2008 12:07 PM
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Tim Foli will return to manage Washington's Class AAA affiliate in 2009.
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Met Hunter
Nov 19 2008 10:37 PM
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John Stearns will be back managing the Nats AA team in Harrisburg as well.
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Benjamin Grimm
Nov 20 2008 06:14 AM
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Tim Bogar was among three who interviewed for a spot on the Phillies coaching staff.
The problem is, they thought they were interviewing Doug Flynn.
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Edgy DC
Nov 21 2008 10:06 AM
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John Nunnaly, batting coach with the Columbus Clippers.
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Edgy DC
Nov 23 2008 08:56 PM
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Jeff Innis, Cape Cod League Hall-of-Famer.
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Edgy DC
Nov 28 2008 11:45 AM
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Tim Bogar formally accepts the Red Sox offer to coach first.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Nov 28 2008 12:37 PM
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The last 5 or 6 messages belong in that other thread.
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Edgy DC
Dec 04 2008 10:34 AM
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I consider coaching jobs part of retirement. Rico's was a coaching job.
I hear you, though.
Nonetheless, I'm sticking with it for one more thread, as Joe McEwing takes over the <a href="http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/dec/04/team-to-get-name-today/" target="_blank">Winston-Salem Former Warthogs.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Dec 04 2008 10:43 AM
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Just for that it's my duty to report that Jason Hardtke has been named hitting coach of the Missoula Osprey (Dbaggs -Pioneer League). The Baggs also named Brett Butler manager of the Reno Aces (PCL).
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G-Fafif
Dec 04 2008 01:04 PM
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I once received a letter letting me know Brett Butler would come and speak to my employees and motivate them with his life experiences and faith in Christ for only $20,000. How much is each Ace going to have to ante up for the privilege?
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Edgy DC
Dec 16 2008 09:38 AM
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<img src="http://www.oursportscentral.com/images/teams/mwlwhitecaps2.gif" align="left">West Michigan Whitecaps going with Met pedigree this year, adding Benny Distefano to Joe DePastino's staff.
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Benjamin Grimm
Dec 16 2008 09:56 AM
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You must have overlooked Jerry Cram in your Google subscription:
| ="Our Sports Central":3gap6pnt]
SAN JOSE, CALIF December 15, 2008- The San Jose Giants announced their 2009 coaching staff today with Andy Skeels joining the club as manager, Jerry Cram as pitching coach and Gary Davenport returning as hitting coach. Yukiya Oba also returns as the team's athletic trainer.
...
Jerry Cram is familiar with San Jose after spending three years as the Giants pitching coach from 2001-2003. The former major leaguer is now entering his ninth season in the San Francisco organization after working the last five years (2004-2008) as pitching coach of the Salem- Keizer Volcanoes (Short-Season). During his time in the Giants farm system, Cram's teams have won three league championships: San Jose in 2001 and Salem-Keizer in 2006 and 2007.
Cram spent parts of four seasons in the major leagues with the Kansas City Royals (1969, 1976) and New York Mets (1974-1975), compiling a 0-3 record and 2.98 ERA over 23 career appearances. Cram has devoted 28 years to the Kansas City organization, the last 14 as a pitching instructor, in a tenure that ended in 1997. Cram then spent three seasons as a pitching coach in the Colorado Rockies minor league system before joining the San Francisco organization prior to the 2001 campaign.
...
The San Jose Giants open their 2009 season on Thursday, April 9th at Municipal Stadium vs. the Stockton Ports. The Opening Night Extravaganza will include a post-game fireworks display, 2009 magnet schedule giveaway, the return of Gigante and much more. [/quote:3gap6pnt]
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metsguyinmichigan
Dec 16 2008 12:29 PM
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="Edgy DC":3l94882y]<img src="http://www.oursportscentral.com/images/teams/mwlwhitecaps2.gif" align="left">West Michigan Whitecaps going with Met pedigree this year, adding Benny Distefano to Joe DePastino's staff.[/quote:3l94882y]
The Whitecaps have a thing on Sunday afternoons where you can either go on the field to play catch, or go near the dugout where all the players stand in a line and sign autographs. (kids get a free soda and hot dog, too. We got to a lot of Sunday games.)
So last year I brought my treasured Mets book, sought out DePastino to sign it and tried to talk to him about his short Mets tenure. Even though there was no one else around and nothing going on, he had absolutely nothing to say. Was disappointed. Maybe I'll have better luck with Benny.
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G-Fafif
Dec 16 2008 12:37 PM
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="Edgy DC":1sfgljfz]<img src="http://www.oursportscentral.com/images/teams/mwlwhitecaps2.gif" align="left">West Michigan Whitecaps going with Met pedigree this year, adding Benny Distefano to Joe DePastino's staff.[/quote:1sfgljfz]
What's Distefano's Met pedigree (other than breaking up David Cone's no-hitter?)
At least this will give Distefano and DePastino a chance to exchange each other's misdirected mail.
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Benjamin Grimm
Dec 16 2008 12:49 PM
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He was a replacement player with the Mets in spring training 1995.
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G-Fafif
Dec 16 2008 12:59 PM
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Now that you say it, it sounds remotely familiar though I have to confess I might have missed it on a multiple choice. Any other ex-big leaguers in that camp?
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metsguyinmichigan
Dec 16 2008 02:07 PM
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Stan Jefferson, I think. I saw a couple of those spring games.
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HahnSolo
Dec 16 2008 02:25 PM
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="G-Fafif":1lmhw7l1]="Edgy DC":1lmhw7l1]<img src="http://www.oursportscentral.com/images/teams/mwlwhitecaps2.gif" align="left">West Michigan Whitecaps going with Met pedigree this year, adding Benny Distefano to Joe DePastino's staff.[/quote:1lmhw7l1]
What's Distefano's Met pedigree (other than breaking up David Cone's no-hitter?)
At least this will give Distefano and DePastino a chance to exchange each other's misdirected mail.[/quote:1lmhw7l1]
Italian restaurants in West Michigan are scurrying to bid for the postgame spread.
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HahnSolo
Dec 16 2008 02:26 PM
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="metsguyinmichigan":2a90z7f9]Stan Jefferson, I think. I saw a couple of those spring games.[/quote:2a90z7f9]
Two guys I went to high school with, Cliff Gonzalez (8th round pick of the Mets in '85) and Chris Walpole, were in that camp. Gonzalez and Jefferson knew each other having both been from Co-op City.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Dec 17 2008 09:11 AM
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DYKSTRA DROPS THE BALL
By KEITH J. KELLY
December 17, 2008 --
FORMER New York Mets out fielder Lenny Dykstra appears to be striking out with his magazine, Players Club.
Dykstra, who helped the 1986 Mets capture the World Series before landing with the Philadelphia Phillies, is leaving behind a string of unpaid bills and a constant parade of shifting editors and office addresses.
In the latest upheaval, Chris Frankie, the acting editor, resigned Dec. 4 along with two other staffers. Now Loren Feldman, former editor-in-chief of Philadelphia magazine, is said to be ready to join as the new chief editor.
"Loren Feldman is the new editor," said Dykstra.
Meanwhile, Frankie says he's owed back pay.
But Dykstra sees things differently: "That's not true. Frankie owes me money. Whatever he's talking about is delusional."
Counters Frankie, "That's beyond ridiculous. How could an employee owe an employer money?"
Beyond three months' back pay, Frankie said he's also owed for business expenses.
Frankie, who had originally helped Dykstra write the TheStreet.com's "Nails on the Numbers" column, got the editor job in August after Dykstra's talks with Neil Amdur, a former sports editor at The New York Times, collapsed at the last minute after a fight over Amdur's ability to hire deputies.
"I did fly out there for a meeting with Dykstra about the editor's job," Amdur confirmed. "I spent a couple of days with him. He did offer me the job."
The last issue of Players Club was published in October, and the November issue will now be combined into a year-end double issue that has yet to appear.
His aim with the magazine was to help professional athletes make sensible investments with the money they earn from sports to ensure they don't go broke when their pro careers end.
But present and former staffers say that Dykstra, who during his days with Major League Baseball had the nickname "Nails," is tough as nails when it comes to paying his staff or vendors.
Frequently, sources said, he got staff to use their own credit cards to pay for ex penses related to the maga zine, and took months to re imburse the employees.
Although the magazine is less than a year old, it has al ready had four different printers and three different editors. Several vendors have also stopped doing business with the magazine.
The latest vendor to suspend business is Getty Images, which sources say is owed around $40,000.
Dykstra claims that's not true. "I have a great relationship with them," he said of Getty.
One source who's worked closely with Dykstra said he "has a haphazard way of paying - he just wires you money."
"It's always that the money is just about to come in and everyone will be paid," this person said, adding that if someone demands payment, then Dykstra turns on them. "If you demand payment, then you are the enemy.
"He always feels abandoned by people, but he doesn't seem to realize that he's the reason people abandon him." |
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Frayed Knot
Dec 17 2008 09:24 AM
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This surprises me not.
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John Cougar Lunchbucket
Dec 17 2008 09:26 AM
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Gotta love the irony in this venture being all about athletes spending wisely.
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Edgy DC
Dec 17 2008 09:26 AM
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Another day, another house of cards.
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Edgy DC
Dec 22 2008 03:04 PM
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Aaron Ledesma, infield coach for the Scranton-Wilkes Barre Yankees.
The Yankees get a AAA infield coach? What a ripoff!
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Frayed Knot
Dec 22 2008 07:36 PM
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Mike Bordick, head baseball coach at Boys' Latin School in Baltimore.
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Edgy DC
Dec 26 2008 08:28 AM
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DJ has no regrets. Of course he doesn't. He got to be a Met.
<blockquote><a href="http://hamptonroads.com/2008/12/dj-dozier-had-bo-jacksonlike-versatility" target="_blank"><img src="http://media.hamptonroads.com/media/images/img/po_01.gif"></a>
D.J. Dozier had a Bo Jackson-like versatility
Posted to: 50 Greatest Sports
By Ed Miller
The Virginian-Pilot
<table width="300" align="left"><tr><td><img src="http://media.hamptonroads.com/cache/files/images/230111.jpg" width="300"><br><img src="http://media.hamptonroads.com/cache/files/images/230121.jpg" width="300"></td></tr></table>As William, Bill, or even Billy, it just would not have worked as well. William Henry "D.J." Dozier would have been no less the athlete without that alliterative name, smooth as one of his touchdown runs or fielding gems at shortstop. That name - "D.J. Dozier" - was the shiny bow on top of the package of prep stardom.
And Dozier was the complete package: a three-sport standout at Kempsville High, wooed by virtually every major football program in the country, coveted by virtually every pro baseball scout.
Virginia Tech coach Bill Dooley came to the Norfolk Sports Club in December 1982 and made a public pitch for Dozier, something that would not be allowed under recruiting rules today, when coaches can't woo prospects through the media. Major league teams waved dollar signs in front of him, trying to convince him to skip football and play baseball.
Dozier, No. 12 on the list of greatest athletes from South Hampton Roads, chose football - and Penn State. Later, after several years in the NFL, he reversed course and picked up a bat and glove. Good enough to briefly make it to the majors, he was, in an era of two-sport dabblers, a local, lower-wattage version of guys such as Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders.
"Obviously, when you look at the statistics, the numbers are certainly not what I hoped they would have been," said Dozier, now 43 and back in Virginia Beach working as a business consultant. "But the fact that I had the opportunity to go that far with what I would call God-given ability is a tremendous blessing."
A dynamo at Penn State, Dozier forever will be a made man among Nittany Lion greats after leading the team in rushing four straight years, earning All-America honors twice and scoring the winning touchdown in a national championship victory over Miami.
Things never clicked for him in the NFL, though. A first-round pick, Dozier missed time with injuries and didn't like the way the Vikings were using him - which was not too often. After three years, he signed with the Mets and began the climb through the minors in 1990. Meanwhile, contract talks with the Vikings stalled. Dozier finally re-signed with them halfway through the 1990 season.
Dozier finished out that season and played six games with Detroit in 1991. With his baseball career seemingly blossoming, he left football behind.
He would play just 25 games for the Mets, though, in 1992. In 1994, at 28, he moved on with his life, retiring from baseball.
Dozier has coached, traveled the world doing missionary work, worked as a financial planner and investment banker. He moved back to Virginia recently from Allentown, Pa.
He brought with him no regrets.
Dozier said he remembered a former Kempsville teammate who played at Lock Haven University. Dozier knew he was good enough to play at Penn State and told his coaches. They offered him a chance to come to Happy Valley. In the end, though, the friend chose the security of staying at Lock Haven, later second-guessing his decision not to take his shot.
"I never forgot what he told me about the regret part of it," Dozier said. "That's what it was for me with baseball. I look at it as something that was a bit nuts, but I really felt that I could do it.
"The biggest thing about it is I didn't want to look back and regret not trying."
He'll never have to.
Ed Miller, (757) 446-2372 ed.miller@pilotonline.com</blockquote>
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metsguyinmichigan
Dec 26 2008 11:17 AM
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That's a nice story!
Plus, I'd forgotten how nasty those old Tides caps were.
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G-Fafif
Dec 26 2008 01:32 PM
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="Frayed Knot":34ueq9bz]Mike Bordick, head baseball coach at Boys' Latin School in Baltimore.[/quote:34ueq9bz]
How do you suppose he'll greet his new players...or monstrously huge batboy?
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themetfairy
Dec 26 2008 02:12 PM
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="G-Fafif":1emwxaju]="Frayed Knot":1emwxaju]Mike Bordick, head baseball coach at Boys' Latin School in Baltimore.[/quote:1emwxaju]
How do you suppose he'll greet his new players...or monstrously huge batboy?[/quote:1emwxaju]
No - just with a simple, "Welcome Abordick," of course!
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Edgy DC
Dec 30 2008 07:42 AM
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Felix Mantilla, spreading the good chromosomes around.
<blockquote><a href="http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/newssun/sports/1353992,5_2_WA30_CLIPZ_S1.article" target="_blank"><img src="http://media.suburbanchicagonews.com/images/cds/NS_newlogo.gif"></a>
Mantilla earning court time at Yale
December 30, 2008
NEWS-SUN STAFF REPORT
Mundelein High grad Raffi Mantilla has worked his way into the playing rotation for the Yale University men's basketball team.
The sophomore guard has played in all eight Bulldog games (2-6 record), and is averaging nearly 10 minutes of action each game.
He's scored a total of 18 points in those eight contests.
Mantilla is the grandson of former major-league baseball player Felix Mantilla, who played with the Milwaukee Braves, New York Mets and Boston Red Sox in a long pro career.</blockquote>
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MFS62
Jan 03 2009 02:29 PM
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In keeping with the three name thread in the non-baseball forum, I'll always remember him as Felix Lamela Mantilla. (I dunno why, but his middle name always stuck in my mind)
Later
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Edgy DC
Jan 03 2009 02:31 PM
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Yup, and time to retire Brogna 2008.
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